else part of an if/else block never runs in Bash script - bash

Question

In the below function, I'm trying to print the file name if there are any files in the directory or an error if there's not, but the else part of the inner if/else block, which prints the error message, never runs.
It should be something logical but I can't figure it out.
walk_dir () {
shopt -s nullglob dotglob
for pathname in "$1"/*; do
if [ -d "$pathname" ]; then
printf "\nFiles under $(basename "$pathname")\n";
printf "==========================================\n";
walk_dir "$pathname";
else
fc=$(find "$pathname" -maxdepth 1 -type f | wc -l);
# Here is the problem
if [ $fc -gt 0 ] && [ ! -z $fc ]; then
printf '%s\n' $(basename "$pathname");
else
printf '\e[30mNo candidate file found.\e[39m\n';
fi
fi
done
}

Answer 1

There are 3 cases for walk_dir
Non-empty folder
Empty folder
Regular file
Ignoring special file, probably N/A here.
When called for non-empty folder, walk_dir will make (recursive) on any sub folder (line #7), and then will print the base name of every regular file in line #12.
When called with empty folder, walk_dir will do nothing since "$1"/* expand to empty list.
When the directory contain files, the code will "count" the number of files in line #9. This l only process non-directories - probably files (assuming not special devices, etc). In this case it will make recursive call for each entry in the folder.
If there are regular files in the folder, the code will execute the find on line #8. On a regular file will always set fc="1", therefore the condition on line 11 will always be true, never getting into the else part on line #13.
1 walk_dir () {
2 shopt -s nullglob dotglob
3 for pathname in "$1"/*; do
4 if [ -d "$pathname" ]; then
5 printf "\nFiles under $(basename "$pathname")\n";
6 printf "==========================================\n";
7 walk_dir "$pathname";
8 else
9 fc=$(find "$pathname" -maxdepth 1 -type f | wc -l);
10 # Here is the problem
11 if [ $fc -gt 0 ] && [ ! -z $fc ]; then
12 printf '%s\n' $(basename "$pathname");
13 else
14 printf '\e[30mNo candidate file found.\e[39m\n';
15 fi
16 fi
17 done
18 }

Answer 2

According to #dash-o explanations I put the if condition before iterating over files and, it worked as I expected.
walk_dir () {
shopt -s nullglob dotglob
fc=$(find "$1" -maxdepth 1 -type f | wc -l);
if [ $fc -eq 0 ] || [ -z $fc ]; then
printf '\e[30mNo candidate file found.\e[0m\n';
fi
for pathname in "$1"/*; do
if [ -d "$pathname" ]; then
printf "\nFiles under $(basename "$pathname")\n";
printf "==========================================\n";
walk_dir "$pathname";
else
printf '%s\n' $(basename "$pathname");
fi
done
}

Answer 3

Too long for a comment!
I don't understand the usage of
fc=$(find "$pathname" -maxdepth 1 -type f | wc -l);
In that part of the code $pathname is either a file (not directory) or the search pattern of the for loop, if no file was found. So this code seems better:
if [[ -f $filename ]]
then
# use input redirection to suppress filename
fc=$(wc -l <"$filename")
else
echo "not a plain file"
fi