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“Alright, Valeska,” the guard outside the secluded cell called out, clanking his nightstick against the metal door. “It’s your lucky day, you get to make a request.”
Leisurely laying in his cot, Jerome grinned as the door was unlocked and pulled open. The pudgy guard waited expectantly with a hand ready at his holster. Jerome, still lounging, lazily turned to him, a lock of ginger hair sweepingly fell onto his forehead.
“Don’t tell me it’s my birthday, Chubby,” he said, mockingly puzzled.
The guard, unimpressed, smiled dryly. “If you ain’t interested, there are plenty o’ other inmates dyin’ to be bumped up the wait-list.”
“Now, now, Chubby,” chastened Jerome, making a show of getting up and exaggerating a deep stretch. “Have a sense of humor. Forty hours per week in a place like this can really make ya forget how to take a joke, huh? Try living here!” He released a screeching cackle and patted the guard on the back once he reached him.
Not many Arkham inmates possessed the power of laying a single digit on any of the prison guards without being hurled to the floor for attempted assault. Jerome knew this, too, and was careful with the way he exploited his strengths. He knew how to get to people, how to make them talk; he couldn’t deny the seamless witty charm he’d perfected to a fault. It was all a matter of unveiling their motivations, what made them tick. One thing Jerome learned over the years was that there’s a bit of bad in every good, and the bad had a habit of always outweighing the good when given the right push.
Chubby, for instance, was a respectable long-time prison guard whose name was, in fact, not Chubby, but something Jerome had long replaced with a nickname more suitable to the man’s physical appearance. Through mere conversation over the weeks, Jerome came to find out about Chubby’s spiraling down debts and child support payments. With a few pretty words, he’d convinced Chubby to write his name at the top of the wait-list with the promise of being rewarded a hefty sum of green dollar bills. With charm came cleverness, and with cleverness came powerful friends, and Jerome sure as hell valued them. Guards were always payed, and their loyalty never ceased to grow. In short, Jerome got what he wanted in the end. Always.
Money, Jerome rolled his eyes at the word as Chubby ushered him down a miserable hallway. It’s always money with these folks. They’ll fight claw and fang for it and then gamble it all away in one night, and still they call me the crazy one. Hah!
Jerome worked it all out years ago, long before he started trading money for special favors. It was easy, laughably so. He started his very own not-so-under-the-table trust fund at Arkham Asylum, the first of its kind, and people would be heavily in the wrong to assume it held the traditional definition of the term. It was anything but.
‘Fund me if you trust me!’, was his comical campaign, a funny little play-on-words which actually meant: Fund me or else.
Fortunately, half the prison inmates were so brain dead that they mindlessly payed their dues from earned wages month after month in hopes to stay clear of Jerome’s radar. In a way, they were buying their safety, because Jerome was not the sort of man you wanted breathing down your neck. What’s worse was when he had one of his loyal cronies do it for him while he casually watched with a mouth full of buttered popcorn. Those who didn’t pay up were often made into spectacles to alert others of the dire consequences that came to those who ignored the fund. Jerome never gave second chances. He ruled with fear, never mercy.
‘You had it coming, Dietrich, you sly dog,’ Jerome thought to himself with a slimy grin.
Guards, of course, knew about the fund though they never interfered. Why should they? They each had the chance to earn a wad of extra money should Jerome ever wake up with a favor in mind. It was a dirty game in which Jerome was always winning, and he just loved to win.
Chubby led him to a confrontational room with nothing but a metal table and a single chair in the center. After being shackled to the table with handcuffs, Chubby left the room and Jerome sat in absolute silence. His grin never fell, and his fingers tapped in time to the catchy tune in his head.
“Jerome Valeska,” a voice came from the speakers.
“Present.”
“In front of you is an envelope. Inside, you will find a Request for Property. Do you understand?”
Annoyed, Jerome stared into the tinted black window where he knew people were observing him from.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to write it all down for me in plain, simple words.”
“Jerome,” says the voice, exasperated. “This is no time to be funny.”
“It never is,” Jerome grumbled to himself.
“Unseal the envelope, carefully read our conditions, and state your request. We urge you to take this seriously because requests that violate our conditions are immediately vetoed.”
Jerome stopped listening the second he grew bored. With a suppressed yawn, he ripped the envelope open and unfolded the form within. He didn’t bother reading it.
“Boring, boring, boring,” he sang under his breath as he scribbled down what he wanted by using two little words with a chained pen. Only after he finished signing his name at the bottom of the form did he mentally unmute the voice that had been calling to him.
“Jerome Valeska!” it bellowed angrily. “We told you to unseal, not rip! This leads to an automatic rejection!”
Jerome pushed the pen away and shrugged. “Rip, unseal, they’re both the same to me. You people know I have trouble understanding, don’t you? You said so yourselves. Should’ve drawn me a picture to follow or something.”
“Did you read the conditions?”
“Yes.”
A short pause.
“Are you telling the truth?”
“No.”
A faint ruckus came from the speakers and some frustrated man kept ordering: “Get him out of there. Just get him out of my face. Fucking wasting our time...”
Chubby was let back into the room with a key to unlock the cuffs from around Jerome’s wrists. Sorely rubbing at the tender skin, Jerome stood to flauntingly bow at the invisible audience behind the window.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you,” he said amiably and followed Chubby out into the hall.
“Shouldn’t have done that,” Chubby reprimanded. “Would’ve done ya good to listen to them. That form’s going straight to the trash. You messed up, Clown Boy.”
Jerome, unrestrained, walked alongside the guard without care, as though the two were close buddies. With a soft hum, he smiled to himself. It was small, and people who didn’t know him would mistake it for his scar, but this was the smile Jerome wore when he knew something others didn’t.
“On the contrary, my fat friend. I’d say this is all going according to plan.”
And it was, because Jerome had written more than just his request on that form. He’d initiated a simple offer to the head of Unit Staff, a man who gave the final say in whether or not a prisoner’s request was accepted. Jerome couldn’t remember his name and thus dubbed him ‘Curly’; a mocking nickname, given that the head of Unit Staff was a bald man with not a hair on his shiny, shiny head.
Jerome knew that the form would be dismissed, but he also knew that Curly wouldn’t refuse an offer from a man known for keeping his end of the bargain. Curly, thanks to his severe gambling addiction, would adhere to Jerome’s request without having it bonded to a set of nonsensical conditions. Hilariously, there was no need for Jerome to do any of this. He could’ve been civil and read the forty-something conditions, and he could’ve lied and said that he did, in fact, read them. His request might’ve been peculiar, but it was certainly a harmless one. It didn’t oppose a single health or safety violation, but he had a reputation to withhold, and he, of course, wanted powerful people to be his friends, such as Curly the Bald-Headed Chief.
A Request for Property was typically approved within a few weeks. The request itself wasn’t delivered to the requestee until much longer than that. When it came to Jerome Valeska, however, his request was delivered to his cell the very next morning before breakfast.
Upon unwrapping the newspaper packaging, his eyes lit up fervently just as the toothiest, wayward grin spread across his face from ear-to-ear.
“Well then, a very happy birthday to me!”
<><><><><>
A chess set.
A plain, ordinary, non-lethal chess set.
No one really believed that Jerome Valeska would actually request for a regular ol’ chess set. Not even when he started walking around with it under his arm like some piece of valuable paragon, a prized possession he dared not leave neglected.
Jervis Tetch watched perplexedly from afar as Jerome pretentiously aligned the black and white pieces with all the carelessness in the world. Once the board was set up, he clasped his gloved hands atop the table and idly twiddled his thumbs together in mock patience. Inmates passed him by hurriedly, not wanting to catch his eye and risk being picked as the unlucky opponent.
Curious and amused, Jervis approached Jerome with a lunch tray in his hands.
“May I join your table?”
Jerome regarded him apathetically. “Depends, Hat Head. You sit, you play. Whaddya say?”
Jervis hesitated. “How interesting, Mr Valeska, to spend your request on a simple game of chess.”
Jerome innocently puckered his lower lip. “It’s a harmless sport which only intellectuals can fully appreciate. Now, my invitation is getting cold, Hat Brain, so either sit down or get lost.”
Jervis considered his words for a moment but was quick to make his mind. “It’s been many a year since I’ve moved a king or queen, but I’ve had my fair share of play and would be most keen.”
Grinning, Jerome made a flourishing hand gesture and Jervis took a seat, setting his tray of food aside.
“Let’s talk rules,” started Jerome.
“I believe I remember how to play.”
“My rules,” Jerome clarified, eyes dark and calculating. Jervis bristled in his seat, and Jerome all but eagerly fed on his nervous energy. “While playing, we talk. When I win, I’ll ask a question, and you’ll answer right. Clear and simple, hmm?”
Swallowing thickly, Jervis struggled to keep his smile. “Don’t you mean ‘if’ you win?”
“No. When.”
“And if I fail to declare the right answer?”
The grin that took form on Jerome’s face was so full of ominous intentions that it was somehow more disturbing than the scars that carved so deep.
“Then I’ll kill you,” Jerome shrugged casually. “Fair and square.” Jervis’s face turned sheet white as he mentally cursed himself with every colorful word in his vocabulary, violently regretting the decision to willfully walk into the lion’s den. It didn’t take long for Jerome to throw his head back and cackle like he’d lost all sense in the world. “Does no one around here know how to take a joke anymore! It’s just a game of chess, for crying out loud! Nothing but some good old-fashioned fun!”
Jervis laughed along nervously, ignoring the urge to yank his collar down in search for some cool air. “You really had me there for a second.”
“What can I say? Can’t resist the opportunity of a good laugh. Now, do the honor of initiating the first move.”
Jervis, having regained his nerves, decided to test the water by pushing forward a helpless white pawn at the end of the line. In turn, Jerome didn’t bother with his row of ready pawns and retaliated by releasing his knight. Jervis quirked a brow at the move, wondering if Jerome had a strategy to follow. Cautiously, he moved another pawn to try and bait the knight.
“Speaking of a lack of good old-fashioned fun,” Jerome said amiably, eyes glued to the board. “Are ya bored to death of the same faces around here yet?”
Jervis mused, questioning why the hell Jerome was moving nothing but that leaping knight. It already captured one of Jervis’s pawns before settling idly in the center of the board like it minded its own business.
“I suppose,” he replied quietly.
“Faces blur in my head,” Jerome continued, a soft frown forming between his brows. “Conversation, too. I’ve heard everything all before, words sound the same to me now. And the food,” he regarded Jervis’s tray of untouched food and gagged. “Don’t even get me started on that. Looks grey, tastes greyer. I’d live longer if I starve!”
Jervis chuckled humorously but quickly scowled when Jerome, yet again, moved his knight.
“Things are quite consistent at Arkham,” Jervis agreed absent-mindedly.
“Hmm. They certainly are.”
Jerome, with a gleeful glint in his eyes, watched his opponent debate his next move. Jervis skimmed his eyes over the board with thinly veiled confusion. He studied his useless pawns; the ones Jerome’s knight had either leapt away from or swiftly captured. Hovering his fingers over his own knight, he considered unleashing it as well, but no. The bishop would do; it travels faster and could surely deter the knight. Jerome, unfazed by the bishop, steered his knight to where it nestled between two helpless pawns. Jervis grid his teeth in response.
“Remind me, Hattie. You found yourself cooped up in this loony bin because…?”
“Gordon,” Jervis hissed, jaw clenched. “Jim Gordon. The great and honorable man who proved to me that there are no great and honorable men in Gotham.”
Jerome chuckled merrily. “Ah, yes. Jimbo does have a habit of sticking his nose in places he doesn’t belong. I, myself, owe him thanks for landing me here. Oh how proud he must feel.”
Jerome’s knight evaded the teetering bishop easily. When Jervis grew annoyed, he unleashed his rook piece as a hopeful form of intimidation. With a quirk of his brow, Jerome finally pushed a black pawn forward, delighting Jervis way more than it should have. Experiencing a sudden rush of confidence, Jervis next moved his own knight. Two rounds later, Jerome’s knight captured his, and Jervis brutally slammed a fist against the rickety table.
“Curses!”
“You cuss like an old man,” observed Jerome.
Jervis’s eyes snapped at him. “We’ve spent five minutes playing and you’ve only managed to move two pieces. Do you even know how to play chess?”
Jerome laughed dryly. “Don’t insult me, my dear Mr Tetch. There’s no reason to talk like a sore loser just yet. We still have things to discuss. Your move.”
Out of pure spite, Jervis moved his second knight, and Jerome smiled privately to himself. Jervis was already paranoid of Jerome’s leaping black knight and kept his eyes on it. This was good. He needed Jervis’s attention centered towards one specific thing. As the game continued, Jervis’s bishop finally captured the staggering black pawn. As soon as the pawn goes, Jerome unleashes another one, making Jervis’s attention split once again between it and that frolicking knight.
“Y’know,” Jerome casually said. “When you first showed up here, word went around that you were some sort of magician. Is that true?”
“Not a magician,” Jervis muttered. “A hypnotist. Two very different classifications.”
“Hmm. Very interesting, Hat Head. Very interesting indeed.” Leaning over the table, Jerome grinned sharply. “With a unique talent like yours, didn’t you ever try – oh, I don’t know – breaking out of this dump?”
Torn between the game and Jerome’s insistent questions, Jervis scowled perplexedly. “I can’t. My talent proves useless without the help of a clock’s ticking tick-tocks.”
Jerome briefly perused the canteen walls and detected nothing but electronic clocks that displayed the time in flashing numbers.
“It must tick, or else there’ll be no trick,” explained Jervis. A moment later, he jerked back to study Jerome’s determined expression. “Why are you asking me all this?”
Jerome smiled languidly. “It’s only small talk.”
Jervis, unconvinced, shook his head slightly. “No. No, you want something.”
“Yes. Small talk, as we’ve established. Now here’s a fun theoretical situation for you: If you were to walk out of here today, free to roam as you please, would you leave Gotham?”
Jervis’s eyes instantly darkened. His jaw jutted forward tensely as he vigorously worked the muscles there. “Not before I shed a few drops of red in my wake. Jim Gordon has yet to pay for that faithful day he took my beloved Alice away. He thinks he’s bested me for once and for all, but I’ll chase and haunt him till he begs for no more.”
Jerome screeched manically with arms wrapping around his middle as his insides hurt. Laugh lines brutally cut into his face and tears collected at the corners of his eyes. When he calmed down after a long while, he ran a hand over his face and released a long, pleasant sigh. Jervis stared at him cautiously, not knowing whether this outburst derived from good intentions or not.
“Y’wanna know a secret?” Jerome asked, stray giggles still escaped him every few seconds. Not waiting for an answer, he cupped a hand around his scarred mouth and whispered: “I’m gonna orchestrate the greatest prison break in the history of Arkham Asylum, and when I do, Gotham will have nowhere to run and hide.” Smiling arrogantly, he sat back and loosely folded his arms over his chest.
Jervis blinked at him a couple of times, needing a moment to replay the words he’d just heard over in his head. Then, much to his own surprise, he burst into a fit of laughter. He tried stifling it with a hand over his mouth, but there was no use. Jerome, smile undisturbed, patiently waited until Jervis tired himself out.
“Do I amuse you, Hattie?”
“I’m sorry,” Jervis said, sincerely but airily. “It’s just that you might have the guards here wrapped around your finger, but even you must be smart enough to know that you can’t bribe them into letting you walk out of here a free man.”
Jerome threw him an unimpressed look. “C’mon now, how stupid do you think I am?”
Thinking Jerome asked a rhetorical question, Jervis stayed quiet. When Jerome cleared his throat warningly, nervous beads of sweat gathered at Jervis’s temples.
“N-not at all. With your reputation, I’d expect nothing but gall.”
Satisfied, the friendly smile returned to Jerome’s face. “That’s more like it. Check.”
“Excuse me?”
“Check mate.”
Dropping his eyes to the board, Jervis stared in disbelief at that damned black knight as it checked his helpless king. He’d hardly been paying any attention to the game at all over the last few minutes. He vaguely remembered moving pieces, but his mind had been elsewhere. He’d been reliving some dismal memories, revisiting some buried bitter emotions… He’d forgotten he was playing, and Jerome did this on purpose.
“See?” Jerome scolded, tutting comically at his baffled opponent. “I told ya I’d win. Maybe it’ll do you good not to underestimate me next time, eh, Hat Head?”
Jervis parted his lips to respond, but no words came out. How the hell did this psychopath beat him by using nothing more than two pawns and a knight?
“Now,” Jerome clapped his hands together to regain Jervis’s attention. “As my final rule demands it, I have a very important question to ask you, Hattie. There’s only one correct answer so don’t disappoint me.” Staring measurably at Jervis’s worried eyes, his mouth curved sinisterly. “How’d ya like t’be a part of my band of escapees?”
Jervis stared back dumbly. He wasn’t sure what he expected to be asked, but it certainly wasn’t that. The muscles he didn’t realize were tense relax as he breathed more easily.
“You’re asking me to-“ Catching himself, he lowered his voice to avoid any possible eavesdropping. “You’re asking if I’d be interested to break out of Arkham?”
Jerome snorted. “And you thought I was the dumb one?”
“What’s in it for me? You wouldn’t offer if there wasn’t something you needed.”
Jerome nodded approvingly. “What I need is that unique talent of yours. We need to control a few people if we want to breathe the air outside again.”
“I told you,” Jervis groused, “that I can’t do anything if I have no ticks or tocks.”
“Ah,” Jerome grinned slyly. “That’s where I come in. See, those guards you said I have wrapped around my finger wouldn’t say no to me even if it killed them. If it’s a clock you need, it’s a clock you’ll get. All I have to do is ask. As you can imagine, people have trouble saying ‘no’ to me.”
Skeptical, Jervis bit his lip in thought. “Who else is a part of this ‘band of escapees’?”
“Registration just opened today, and you just so happen to be the first lucky fella I interview.”
“This… this was an interview? Are you serious? This was meant to be a regular game of chess, nothing more, nothing less!”
“Keep it down,” Jerome quieted. “I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly serious. And I hope you’ve been paying attention to the game, because I’ve just played out our escape plan to you.”
Overwhelmed, Jervis set his elbows atop the table and cradled his head in his clammy hands. “How is that possible? You won by moving three pieces. You cheated, you schemed, something is not what it seems.”
Grinning shrewdly, Jerome tapped a finger against his temple. “Trust the unexpected, or, in other words, in me. I’ve got a bulletproof plan sure to work, and if you’re in, we’ll need one more pawn before we let the real game begin.”
Jervis lifted his head slowly, thoughts racing in his head. “Another pawn…” he murmured, and a deep frown buried itself between his brows. “Oh, I see how it is. I’m just a pawn to your plan, making you the knight who rides off to victory.”
Jerome flicked his wrist at the riled-up hatter. “No reason to get touchy. This is, after all, my plan. I’m the mastermind. If you do this with me, you’ll have the chance to torture Jimbo however way you like with no one to cut the fun short, doesn’t that sound like the sugar icing on top to you?”
Intrigued, Jervis dug his nails into his palms, imagining himself holding a gun to Jim Gordon’s head, hearing his pleads and wails of mercy. It excited him more than he was willing to admit to the ginger psychopath who looked like he was reading every thought that wisped through the hatter’s head.
“Oh, but there is one condition,” Jerome said offhandedly. “If I’m to graciously let you partake in my grand escape and make way for you to teach ol’ Jimmy Boy a valuable lesson, there’s a personal family matter I’d like your help with. It’s a fair deal, if you ask me. Because once everything’s done and swept under the rug, Gotham will be yours to torment to your heart’s content. It’ll no longer be ruled by the corrupt, but by the oppressed!” Jerome snickered to himself, hissing through his teeth as he tried to contain himself. So, are you in or out? Fair warning: I’m tempted to kill you if you’re out. Can’t have you mouthing off to the wrong ears and putting me in time-out! Wouldn’t be nice of you.”
“In, In! You can count me in!”
Rubbing his hands together, Jerome settled into a greasy smile that didn’t really meet his eyes. “I just knew you wouldn’t let me down. Now that that’s settled, we need to find our second pawn. Someone who makes stuff. Dangerous stuff. We need someone who can build a bomb from scratch.”
A slow grin spread across Jervis’s face. “I think I know someone. I don’t know him personally, but I hear he blows stuff up for fun.”
“Now that’s promising! Invite him to a friendly game of chess tomorrow at noon. After that, you can start bidding this place a hearty farewell, because if you play your cards right, you ain’t never coming back here again!”