Wayne of Gotham by Tracy Hickman

through the papers, quickly finding the one he wanted. “Then I suppose you know that he’s working for the Rossetti mob. He’s into them for the kind of money he can’t hope to pay off.”
    â€œDenny and Martha are both full grown, sir,” Thomas countered. “They know what they’re doing.”
    â€œOh? And I suppose that means you do, too?” Patrick shot back across the desk. “You haven’t been home more than a day, fresh plucked from almighty Harvard Medical School, and I wake up to hear that you’ve been hanging around Lewis Moxon’s little café. Damn it, boy, the man’s Julius Moxon’s kid, the biggest crime lord this city’s ever seen.”
    â€œSo what?” Thomas shouted. “So they’re not your kind of people? They’ve got problems, sure, who doesn’t? But what’s wrong with them?”
    â€œThey’re criminals, boy!” Patrick roared, standing up behind the desk. “What do you think? With all the knowledge they stuffed into your head up there and all your medical voodoo, you’re gonna just give them a couple of aspirin and make them all better? You can’t cure them like they’re some case of the measles. I’ve known these kind of people all my life—had to work with them, watch out for them, protect you from them—and I can tell you, boy, that they do not change! They are just out to take you down, feed on you, suck you dry, and then spit you out.”
    Thomas was staring at the photographs spilled onto the desk. Photographs of him from last night at the Koffee Klatch … of Denholm and Martha … of her passed out in the front of Thomas’s car. He reached down and touched the photograph as he spoke. “Real nice, Dad. You had me followed?”
    â€œOh, wake up, boy!” Patrick grumbled. “You’re a Wayne! You have a responsibility to the business and to the name … and these people will never be worthy of you. Leopards cannot change their spots, and these parasites can’t, either. I supported you all through this medical school nonsense and you managed to get through that just fine, but you need to wake up to your responsibilities. There is an empire here you need to learn how to run. You had better get your life in order, son, stop the daydreaming, and get a vision of your future before these vermin strip you clean.”
    â€œYou think I don’t know what I want?” Thomas said. “There’s a better way to live than this, sir, and I’m going to find it.”
    â€œThis is life, boy,” Patrick said in a tone that defied contradiction. “There are predators and there are prey, and the sooner you learn that, the better.”
    â€œSir, you just don’t—”
    â€œDid Dr. Horowitz talk to you about administering that endowment?” Patrick said.
    â€œYes, sir,” Thomas answered, feeling the wall fall again between them.
    â€œGood. Go on and get out,” Patrick said, looking away as he sat back down. “I’ve got work to do. Maybe I’ll see you for breakfast.”
    The audience was over.
    â€œYes, sir,” Thomas said with a sigh. “Maybe.”
    T homas stepped out of the doors of Wayne Tower and onto Moench Row. He took in a deep breath, though he still could not quite escape the feeling of claustrophobia that had come over him in the building.
    The Buick was parked at the curb with one of the doormen standing next to it. Upon seeing Thomas, the man quickly opened the driver’s side door and came to attention. Maybe the man had been a soldier during the Korean War, maybe he was a veteran … or perhaps just as likely he had watched a lot of war movies and was pretending to be the hero of the Buick door. Was the young man a thief or a slacker or a con man? Would he pick Thomas’s pocket or die defending him? What makes a man who he is? And if there really was something