Why would the Crooked Man care
Nerissa: Faith decided to get some...leverage. She stole a picture of Crane and Lily together.
Who took the picture? Was Lily glamoured as Snow White in the photo? Was it the one Bigby found in the Open Arms?
Nerissa: The minute Faith stole that photo, we had dirt on one of the Crooked Man's allies. If he found out--!
Yeah, so what? The Crooked Man had practically everyone in Fabletown in his pocket, in the sense that many owed him because he was so generous. Who would be able to say anything, or even stand up to him for that matter?
This doesn't make much sense to me, but then again, I'm almost certain I'm missing something. Something that makes this blackmail a legitimate threat/concern to his reputation or his secret organization or whatever.
Comments
I assumed the picture was the one Bigby found in the Open Arms. Primo blackmail material against Crane.
Crane was an incompetent sleazeball, but still pretty important to Crooked Man's operation - he was their man inside the government, he siphoned off funds from Fabletown to send to CM, and could handwave anything about the CM that popped up on the office's radar. If the girls publicised the photo, Crane probably would have been kicked out of office - and at the very least, it would put him under the kind of close scrutiny from Snow and Old King Cole that would make him useless as their inside man. If Crane was under enough pressure, he might even let slip his connection with CM. Reckon that poses enough of a threat to CM for him to retaliate, especially given that Crooked Man has a thing for control.
1) Crane took it himself you look at the picture and yes
2) If the photo ever surfaced publicly than that's a leg kicked off of CM's table so to speak (i.e. his operation would shatter because his person of public power would no longer be in control, i.e. look into any public official blackmail scandal ever, i.e. Watch Dogs plot, lol)
As shown by the game itself, there were many people that'd be willing to confront the Crooked Man,had they known about him beforehand. The obvious example was Bigby, the sheriff, and Snow White, the mayor's assistant, but there's also others like Gren and Holly, among who knows how many others. Besides, the way I see it, the Crooked Man was probably using those murders both as an example towards the high-ranking members in his mafia (The Tweedles, Jersey Devil, Crane, etc) and also because, well, remember the way the Crooked Man always got what he wanted. He acted as an affable and overall nice guy toward his subjects, that's mainly how he ensured their loyalty and trust, it would only seem logical that he helped Crane, even if it meant putting Georgie Porgie in a tight spot, considering one's the mayor and the other a pimp. Of course in the end, the only one who could have gotten anything positive out of those murders was the crooked man himself, but he surely convinced Crane that decision was best for everyone. To sum it up, it's more of a mafia thing.
God, how could Crane be such an idiot to think that taking that picture was EVER a smart thing to do? To me, that boggles the mind that he could be so ignorant of the possible repercussions.
Bad writing. Doesn't take many braincells to realize the 4 month delay + the story rewrite was going to create so many details that make no sense.
It's simple: "Discretion is our guarantee." Georgie can't let customers know he can't keep that promise. His problems are CM's problems because that's a revenue stream. And CM demands loyalty from all employees.