People always wonder why someone named Loose Lips could do business in the underworld.
They wonder why Penguin trusts Ricky LeBlanc, why buyers listen to him, why he can move guns and ammos from one side of the city to the other without issue or anyone questioning him when he says the shipment was caught by the pigs.
So they rationalize.
They think it's some joke, irony.
They think it's an old mess up he paid for when was young and stupid.
They think all sorts of things, but they don't stop doing business.
Technically speaking, he was only supposed to do business for his patron's interest, he was beholden to a certain standard, a type of loyalty to the man in the suit and expensive taste. But that's just words, nothing stopping him from eating a couple more shares of the big juicy pie getting cut up every night.
Gotham had the biggest pies, after all, and nobody bothers keeping tracks of the crumbs.
So when a bunch of half-drunk Romanians coked up on the high of a successful heist call him up for an arms sale. Loose Lips listens. And he shows up with the money, it's important to always be good for the money, makes people ask less questions.
And when they ask less questions, they give more answers.
Two crates of AKs, they sold him, but he could see trucks filled with more, they probably had a buyer lined up.
Probably the one who facilitated the whole operation, there was no way they did it on their own, after all.
And that person was getting screwed, not as much as the boys they lit up for the crates though.
They didn't say who, of course, they were drunks not idiots.
And he didn't ask. Because a man called Loose Lips asking you about murder made people ask questions.
Still, they spoke much about how they lit up the poor bastards. How it was nobody important, not some Sicilian made men, or some tattooed up triad boy.
Just some poor fucks, which said very little but more than they thought.
Not quite a confession, more like bragging, like a bunch of finance people while they caused an economic disaster, just not as big, and with more incoherent singing of military songs.
And he listened, remembered, gave them the cash and drove off to stash the guns then arranged to offload them to his connect in Blüdhaven for a juicy premium.
A nice payday for a single night's work.
But there was always more money to be made in Gotham.
And he was, after all, beholden to Mr. Cobblepot.
So when hours later, he drove to the back of the Iceberg Lounge, cracking jokes with his mates, he went straight to the big man himself.
Well, figuratively.
He walked by a set of corridors with good sound isolation, the loud music of the night club muffled enough that you could at least hear yourself think, checking multiple guards and collaborators either walking by or keeping watch.
The closer he got to the big man's office, the less illegal it got. The further away from his office, closer to the night club, the less illegal it got.
But the middle contained so many criminals doing criminal activities you'd need every wagon in the island to send them to Blackgate, and even that might take multiple trips if the boys in blue bothered with the evidence.
"Boris," Loose Lips nodded to the seven feet tall African American man, who was truly named Boris from birth, spoke fluent Russian, and he'd personally seen him down four bottles of Vodka so freaking pure it might as well be ethanol, "I'm here to see the boss, a little bird told me a couple secrets he might wanna here,"
Boris didn't carry a gun.
Boris didn't have a criminal record.
Boris was the scariest son of a gun Loose Lips met, save for that madman in a bat costume.
The unit of a guard didn't answer, only knocking in a certain rhythm before opening the door.
"Mr Cobblepot, it is Loose Lips," Boris said in a thick accent, "he claims to have information,"
He said the word 'information' the same way someone else would say heroine, and it might as well be in their line of work.
"Let him in," Said a gruff voice, one that didn't sound as booming as some brute, or as terrifying as Boris', but he had learned to have a healthy amount of fear and respect for his Boss, "Come in, Ricky, tell me everything"
Only then did he enter, standing straighter and dropping the slick smile and attitude, if any of it was left after talking to Boris.
The Penguin's study was one display of opulence after the other, each one grabbing the visitor's attention and keeping it the longer they looked, and the more they knew.
Ricky himself was no great connoisseur, but even he could see that the cigar box was made of African Blackwood, that the desk was some perfectly preserved antique, and that each painting on the wall, and even the rug on the floor costs more than he made in months, or even a whole year.
Then came the 'big' man himself, sitting on an expensive chair, wearing his signature monocle and black bespoke suit tailored to perfection, his dark purple top hat resting on the mahogany desk showing his balding hair, and that he was currently in a good mood.
Oswald Cobblepot was many things, a criminal mastermind, a successful businessman in both the underworld and legitimate one, someone who started smuggling a few guns and grenades, turned that into bringing whole ships worths of contrabands in only a couple years, and was now one of the premier power brokers in Gotham City despite every setback and disadvantage.
He was also 4 feet and 10 inches tall on his best day.
But boy could the Penguin make you feel small.
"Thank you, Mr Cobblepot," He said respectfully and actually meant it, the man paid him enough for him to actually bother with manners, "I've received reliable information about a heist on a weapons shipment, high quality munition, full automatic rifles and likely more armament."
Short and to the point, just like how the boss liked it.
Loose Lips watched the Penguin adjust his monocle and he knew he was at least interested, which could mean very good things about his own status and wallet depending on how the discussion goes.
"Hm, tell me about it," he leaned back onto his share, fixing him with a stare that told him precisely jack shit about what was going on in that head of his.
Ricky didn't waste one second.
"My connect told me about a small to mid sized group, Romanians, who just finished up a raid on an ongoing weapons smuggling operation. Their targets were offloading the goods from the Bay into transport trucks, but were neither armed nor ready enough to deal with a bunch of drunks with assault rifles," Loose Lips did exactly what his name advertised, and told everything, "the operation was a success, and they went on to offload a small part of the goods locally on the down low, but kept the bulk of it, likely to sell it to some partner who helped facilitate the operation,"
"They mentioned who that partner is?" the Penguin asked in a tone that said he probably knew the answer, but was open to a pleasant surprise.
"No, Mr Cobblepot, they were drunk enough not to make that kind of mistake," Ricky risked the joke, and smiled when his employer laughed at it, "they were however very well prepared. Good armored trucks, good weapons, and a solid plan."
"According to your connect," Cobblepot smiled an ugly smile and leaned forward, and it took years of experience and having once literally been held upside down by Batman not to freeze.
"Yes, according to my contact," Loose Lips said with a nod, "they also mentioned the Romanians were very insistent about their targets not being made men or anyone of importance, just a bunch of nobodies…who happened to have a shipment of quality weapons,"
It wasn't going to hold up, but he wasn't banking on his flimsy excuse holding, he was banking on the Penguin caring more about the information and the fact he provided it than whatever little operation he was running on the side.
After a tense second, Penguin leaned back again.
"I see," Cobblepot, lighting a cigar and taking a puff, "good job, LeBlanc, why don't you go downstairs and get yourself a drink, a good one."
The gamble paid off.
Ricky couldn't help but smile.
"Of course, Mr Cobblepot," he smiled, turning around and leaving, not wiping the sweat on his brow before the door closed, "thank you for your time"
He passed by Boris again, but this time did not even bother trying to charm the man, he went straight down into the recreational area Penguin let his men relax in, away from the noise of the club or the stress of their duties, headed for the bar and was about to ask for the strongest whiskey they had.
Only to be served a bottle of wine, a good one, before he could even open his mouth.
Loose Lips smiled once more, a bigger smile.
Things were looking up for ol' Ricky LeBlanc.
He didn't know that Cobblepot knew a set of armored trucks were rented to a crew of Romanians by a subordinate of his, or that despite his Romanian clients' insistence, the men they lit up were not…fucking nobodies.
Loose Lips would only learn later about the Sullivan family losing one of their cousins, and a bunch of men along with a weapons shipment during an attack nobody expected, they were after a subordinate group to Falcone himself.
He would learn even later that the weapons ended up in the hands of the Panessa family.
He would never learn that they were meant for Black Mask, but a duo of romantic vigilante decided to go on a date, but then only tip the police about the weapons instead of seizing them or making sure clean cops took the call, leading to the infamous Gotham corruption system delivering the guns straight to the Cosa Nostra's grubby fingers for pennies on the dollar.
Penguin would likely never learn that either, but what the crime boss did know, was that the Panessa family had received an unexpected amount of Kalashinokovs that didn't go through their usual channels, nor were they shared with the other five families.
It didn't concern Oswald Cobblepot much, but there was always a dollar to be made in Gotham.
So the power broker sold the information to the raging Sullivans without a care for the consequences.
This was something Loose Lips would learn one day, but that would happen long after hearing about and seeing the consequences of his boss' actions.
After all, it was hard to miss a gang war starting.
. . .
Yo! It's Hamtaro!
I ended up posting this just in time to remain true to our schedule, one chapter a week going strong.
I hope I did Penguin some justice, even if his role was less personal and more of a power broker seen through the lenses of a some small fry with a big ego.
Loose Lips is also a canon character from Batman Arkham Origins, the dude batman interrogates upside down then drop into a tree.
In any case, things happened slowly, then all at once.
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