Falcone's reign, as it seems today, was a dictatorship full of black violence.
Whatever business you ran in Gotham, you had to pay protection money to the mob led by Falcone, or you wouldn't survive a day in the city.
Of course, the reason for the order is that the protection money can be renamed management fees or something, after all, Gotham is already a mob city.
But this also brings a problem, that is, in this city, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, after all, the more people at the bottom of society, the more exploitation will be.
Just like in the sea, big fish eat little fish, little fish eat shrimp, shrimp eat sludge.
At that time in Gotham, people over 90 are not even sludge, they can only struggle to survive in the most ordinary positions, and after handing over protection money every month, the rest of the money can only barely survive, and continue to make money for the mob next month.
Everyone was in a hurry and numb, living the same day after day, under the supervision of the mob and doing whatever they told you to do, no matter what.
When people didn't obey, they were beaten or even more terrible punishments, like their houses were set on fire, submachine guns were fired at the road, their families were tied to concrete bricks and sunk into the sea, and everyone was covered with this black terror.
You can't even have anything that the gangsters want, they take everything away.
Your husband is handsome, take away.
Your bike is of good quality, robbed.
Your sofa is made of soft material.
It's not the Falcones who do these things, it's mostly low-life thugs who do these things, but their little gang is attached to the big gang, and the big gang is attached to the bigger gang, until it belongs to the Big Ten family.
Elsewhere, if you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, the answer will be a variety of things, from scientists to magistrates to firemen.
But in Gotham back then, the answer would have been one who wanted to be a boss.
Because the only way for kids to get ahead was to join a gang, be a good boss, be the kind of person they hated the most as a kid, and work their way up through all sorts of dark acts.
At that time, Gotham's government, with more than half of the officials receiving political donations from the gang families, and the rest living under the threat of the gang, could be said to be a hopeless city.
It was then that James Gordon returned to the city after being discharged from the army and became a police officer. One of his first cases was when Brixwein's parents were shot to death in an alley.
He comforted young Bliss, promising her that he would get to the bottom of everything and get justice for her parents.
But everything leads to the gang, and in the process of solving the case, he encounters many, many things that let him see the terrible torrent in the darkness.
Technically, Gordon was still doing well as a homicide detective in those days.
As a cop, he didn't have to pay protection money, and thugs didn't bother them.
After all, in the view of the ten families, Gotham is their own city, and the police in the city are also maintaining security for their own families. How can there be a reason for their own families to pay protection money?
Although Gordon was born in Gotham, he has seen the outside world, the colorful outside world, unlike Gotham's eternal gray, he can not accept his city is like this.
He is ready to bring all the gangsters to justice and make Gotham see the light again.
Even though half the food he carries is Falcone, it's always full of good food.
But he did it not for himself, but for more poor people.
So he suffered a lot. He was demoted, threatened, framed and assassinated.
The more he investigated, the more intense the tactics of the gang, and the countless times he narrowly escaped death, until more than a decade ago, Batgirl showed up, the two of them worked hard for three years, and he finally won....
Ten families have collapsed, leaving only the Cobblepot family, the Penguin woman of today, who occupies less than one percent of its former size.
He sent Falcone, the former emperor of Gotham, to Blackgate Prison with his own hands.
Though he soon got out, he left for Hong Kong, and Gordon never saw him again.
After that, Gordon spent more energy on dealing with the endless variety of masked men, and probably only when a man took a drink at night, he would think of the thrill of his youth.
Now, there was the man from his memory.
"Gordon, good lad then, you are old now."
Falcone spoke with emotion, looking at Gordon's eyes without any hatred, like an ordinary old man looking at his son and nephew.
He was still gentlemanly, well-suited and suave. Everything in this room felt like a step back in time, back in the glory days of the Roman, when Gordon had first met him.
He had come to Falcone for clues in the early days of the case, and Falcone had received him with the same grace, the underground emperor of the city and a small policeman, talking across this desk.
Just as it is today.
Gordon would not have been beguiled by him, perhaps thirty years ago, but certainly not today, and he remembered how his men had brought him in before.
The Romans are back, in full force!
"You're getting old faster than I am, Falcone."
Gordon, unflinching even in desperate circumstances, was quick to retort.
Falcone just smiled, and still stroked his cat, which was sleepy from the fireplace and yawned in his arms with comfort.
"Yes, we are old, and the world is destined for the young, so I intend to return to this part of the world before I die."
"There's nothing to see in Gotham. You should go back to Hong Kong." Gordon sat down across from him and made calm eye contact.
Falcone's hand paused, he looked down at the rose on his chest and looked up at Gordon in a puzzled way: "Yeah, there's nothing to see.... I handed you a glorious city, and you let it turn into this?"
"At least people are free." Gordon closed his eyes and leaned back on the couch.
"What is freedom? They can't even leave the door at night now." Falcone shook his head and laughed as if he heard some joke, and seeing Gordon's closed eyes, he added, "You and Batgirl lied to me once, and I don't blame you, because I know what you wanted was a better city."
"And I don't blame her either, because someone in my family killed Bliss's parents behind my back, and even though it was infiltrated by the court, I got what I deserved."
"..." Gordon did not speak.
'Remember? I asked you what you wanted. You told me you wanted cities where people could live and work and children could grow up healthy. So I let it go, I gave it to you to do what I couldn't, I let you put me in jail, I let you be the hope of Gotham, and then I went far away, and this is the answer you gave me?"
Falcone calmly placed the cat on the carpet and watched it curl up in a ball where it slept. He took the bottle from his desk and poured it into two glasses, its golden liquid glistening in the firelight.
"Gotham... It just takes time, it will get better..." Gordon said what he himself found hard to believe.
'That's why I like you, Gordon. You always hope. You don't give up.' Falcone stood up with a smile and, shaking a glass of wine into Gordon's hand, clinked it lightly with him. 'You are a more ideal successor to me than the little cripple of the Cobblepot.'