by Paul Dini
Harley looked down at herself. She was wearing an immaculate white ruffled apron over a red-and-black house dress and soft red slippers with fuzzy black pom-poms. As she straightened up, she heard bells jingle; the sound made her smile. June Cleaver had done the vacuuming in pearls; Harley Quinn baked cookies with bells on. Maybe if she listened closely, she’d hear a laugh-track.
No, what she heard was children. A little girl was yelling, complaining about her brother who was chasing her around the living room. Harley turned to look. The girl was wearing a smaller version of her harlequin hat, bells and all, and the boy was squirting something at her from a big fake flower on his shirt.
Daddy, daddy! JJ’s poisoning me! the girl cried.
And there was her puddin’, reading a newspaper in a recliner in the middle of the living room, which was cluttered with partially assembled bombs and a couple of junior-sized chainsaws.
Well, you just poison him right back, cupcake! the Joker said cheerfully. He had a little gray at the temples now and he needed reading glasses, but he was as handsome as ever. He rattled the newspaper; the headline on the front page said
THOUSANDS DIE IN MYSTERIOUS SANITATION EXPLOSION
Her dream-memory told her she and the Joker had done that together, blown up a toilet factory on the day the Quality Control Department were testing a new model.
The gray at the Joker’s temples made him look aristocratic, royal even. He was the Clown Prince of Crime, and she was his consort.
Harley’s eyes filled with tears of joy. Then she was staring up at the dark ceiling while they ran down her face. She had never been so happy. So what if it was just a dream—the feeling was real. She was so lucky. Most people went their whole lives and never felt half as good, not even in their dreams.
Harley rolled over to put her arm around her puddin’, but he wasn’t there. She sighed wistfully. He’d be in his office, coming up with a brilliant plan to teach Batman who was boss. She had a strong urge to get up and go to him, bring him a cup of cocoa. Instant cocoa was one of the few things they had in the cupboard, which was actually a cabinet with three shelves and a curtain instead of a door.
No, she couldn’t. Mustn’t. He’d already told her he couldn’t look weak in front of his henchmen. He loved her so much, it wasn’t fair to force him to be mean to her for the sake of maintaining his leadership. She didn’t want him to be sad, ever.
She found a scrap of paper and a pen, and left a note on his pillow that said WAKE ME.
But he didn’t.
Life went on.
And on.
Moses parting the Red Sea had nothing on Batman in midtown Gotham City on a busy afternoon. But then, Moses had had to make do with a staff and a little divine help; Batman had the Batmobile.
The Batmobile’s engine had a particular sound—not loud, but distinctive, a pitch that cut through traffic noise. People described it variously as “solid,” “forceful,” “means business.” Gotham City mechanics sometimes got customers wanting them to “make my hybrid sound like that.” The mechanics suggested playing a recording of the Batmobile while commuting to and from work. (Rumor had it the Batmobile at high speed was the most popular sound-effect recording on Amazon and iTunes.)
Gothamites seldom saw the Batmobile except on the news or YouTube. Most of the videos from the latter were very, very dark—bats and Batman were both nocturnal. So when the Batmobile appeared in broad daylight in midtown Gotham City, traffic on both the street and the sidewalk came to a halt as people pulled out their phones. What they recorded was, for the average innocent bystander, a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Batman ejected from the Batmobile and, at the same time, shot a grappling hook up to the roof of the nearest building. He swung out over the heads of the awestruck pedestrians in front of Katz’s Finest Deli (Come In, Have A Nosh), one of whom said she felt the breeze from his cape ruffle her hair. Then he was zipping upward and, when he got to the roof, he disappeared from the view of everyone except the Channel Seven Traffic Copter. For the next two days, they showed the video of Batman racing across rooftops, leaping from one to another until he rappelled down the side of the Cooley Building.
Due to flight restrictions over the city, the Channel Seven helicopter wasn’t allowed to circle around for a better look, but it was a thrill for everyone lucky enough to see as much as they did. Other people on the street only got to see the Batmobile drive itself into a private underground garage a block away from Wayne Enterprises, but they were thrilled, too. One person was quoted as saying, “I never realized I had a bucket list until right then. But now I don’t know what else to put on it.”
* * *
Commissioner James Gordon was not thrilled. He was sitting in his dentist’s waiting room on the eighth floor of the Cooley Building. As usual, the dentist was running late. Also as usual, the magazines lying around left a lot to be desired. Gordon was starting to wonder if there was some kind of subscription service specifically for dentists’ offices that supplied only the dullest, most boring periodicals, and all of them at least five years out of date. Even the Highlights for Children magazines were several years old; Gordon knew because he had read them all on his last visit.
Commissioner Goofus complains he’s bored waiting for his dental appointment and hates his check-ups. Commissioner Gallant flosses and watches those between-meals snacks, and still has all his own teeth.
Gordon sighed. Damn, he hated these check-ups. He didn’t like a single thing about them, not even the pretty dental assistant gushing about what great teeth he had, mainly because she kept adding “for a man your age.” Well, she didn’t look a day over twelve, so what did she know?
Dental Assistant Goofus lets the patient know she thinks he’s older than dirt. She should read Highlights for Children Who Are Dental Assistants.
As if on cue, the receptionist looked up and said, “Commissioner Gordon? You’re next. It’s room fourteen today, last door on the left.”
“Swell, thanks,” Gordon mumbled as he got up and went through the door marked Patients—Come In! Every time he came here, he was struck again by what a big practice it was. He ambled along the hall in no hurry. Last door on the left, the receptionist had said. That didn’t bode well. Nothing good ever happened at the last anything on the left. He should turn around right now and leave, pleading a sudden police emergency or a just-remembered prior obligation. An attack of beriberi.
Overwhelming existential dread. Labor pains. Terminator says I must come with him if I want to live.
But they’d charge him for the last-minute cancellation and he’d still have to come back for the check-up. Might as well get it over with, he thought grumpily, and then he’d be done with it for another six months.
Dammit.
He finally reached the end of the hall and door fourteen. He glared at it; unlike the many felons, miscreants, and all-purpose bad guys he had faced over the years at GCPD, door fourteen wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him.
Jim Gordon pressed the handle and went in.
* * *
“Have a seat. I’ll be right with you,” the dentist said. He was standing in front of a light-box studying an X-ray. His voice didn’t sound familiar. Did they hire someone new? At this rate, they’d need a longer hallway.
“I don’t mind saying I really hate these check-ups,” Gordon said as he eased himself into the dental chair. “If it weren’t part of the required police physical, I probably wouldn’t come at all.”
The dentist was washing his hands at the sink now. “Oh, come now, Commissioner—what in this world is more beautiful than a nice, big, pretty smile!” He spun around, holding a nasty-looking dental pick in one hand, grinning so hugely he showed every tooth in his evil, clown-white face.
“You!” Gordon tried to get out of the chair as the Joker brandished a large and decidedly un-dental drill. Something hit him the chest, exploded into a glittery cloud with a POP! and he found himself bound tightly to the chair.
“Naughty, naughty!” Harley Quinn posed cutely in front of the door. She was dressed in a white uniform that was at serious odds with her harlequin hat and clown-white face. “Don’t wiggle around like that or doctor won’t give you a sugar-free lollipop!”
Gordon opened his mouth to yell for help and she stuffed a large wad of cotton into it. The Joker looked Gordon over, shaking his head.
The Joker tutted. “My, my,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully as he watched Gordon struggle. “This doesn’t look good. This doesn’t look good at all.”
“Your diagnosis, Doctah J?” Harley Quinn asked in that silly ditz-voice.
“Well,” the Joker said, “I’m afraid everything will have to go.” He turned on the power drill and advanced on Gordon as Harley Quinn reclined the chair. “Hold still now, Commissioner. This is going to hurt. A lot.” He knelt on Gordon’s chest and aimed the point of the whirring drill at the center of his forehead.
Gordon squeezed his eyes shut. Over the decades, he had been shot, stabbed, beaten up, even tortured, and survived all of it, only to come to this—getting drilled to death by a couple of criminal clowns who had hijacked his dental check-up. If there was such a thing as fate, it had the Joker’s sadistic sense of humor. Or maybe fate was the Joker’s equally evil twin. That would explain a lot, Gordon thought, unable to breathe under the Joker’s weight on his chest.
When he was sure he was dead suddenly there was another explosion and broken glass sprayed everywhere. The Joker got off his chest—blessed relief!—and laughed. “You’re a little early for your appointment but I’ll see you now anyway!”
Gordon opened his eyes. Maybe he was wrong about fate. Either way, he would never get tired of Batman showing up at exactly the right moment.
“It was an easy hint.” Batman tossed something at the Joker, who let it fall to the floor. Gordon blinked—it was a pair of chattering false teeth with a tag saying, To Batman, c/o GCPD. “Sloppy,” Batman said. “Predictable. You’re losing your edge.”
“’Scuse me!” Harley Quinn said huffily. “But the teeth were my idea—and so’s this!” She turned a valve on a gas canister and aimed the hose directly at Batman’s face.
Gordon could smell the nitrous oxide—laughing gas. Batman fell to his knees gasping and coughing. There was nothing funny about breathing in that much nitrous all at once. Except to Harley Quinn, who thought it was hilarious.
“Hey, that’s a real gasser, ain’t it, Mistah J?” she said between giggles.
In the next moment, Gordon thought the nitrous was making him hallucinate as events took a sharp turn into the surreal. The Joker grabbed the floppy points on Harley’s hat, pulling her to him so they were nose to nose. “I deliver the punchlines around here!” he bellowed into her face. “Got that?”
“Yessir,” Harley Quinn said, her voice tiny and fearful.
The Joker shoved her aside and the jolly Clown Prince of Crime persona was back. “Well, Batsie, it’s been a hoot as always, but I really must run!” He paused at the door to add, “Keep flossing and watch those between-meals snacks!”
Gordon felt something drop into his lap again—a hand grenade, sans pin. Before he could panic, Batman swept it up and out the broken window, shielding him from the midair explosion with his cape.
His ears were ringing as Batman removed the wad of cotton from his mouth and cut him free of his bonds.
“Can you stand, Commissioner?” Batman asked, his voice sounding muffled.
Gordon got to his feet slowly, holding onto Batman’s arm. “Thanks, old friend, I can stand up,” he said. “What I can’t stand is these damned check-ups.”
The hideout du jour wasn’t an abandoned warehouse, for a change. It was a warehouse in use, secretly owned by an organized crime don sympathetic to felons in need of a place to lie low that wasn’t way out in the middle of nowhere. Besides paying rent, they had to abide by the rules: no body-dumping, no kidnapping, no drug dealing, no fencing stolen loot, or doing anything else that would attract cops. Also: no parties, no smelly cooking, and no fraternizing with warehouse employees.
Harley thought that was a lot of rules for a small space with a jerry-rigged shower and a toilet that took forever to fill after each flush. Not that she wanted to dump a body or throw a party with smelly hors d’oeuvres, but still.
On the upside, this hideout only had room for two. The henchmen had to find their own hideouts, and she had her puddin’ all to herself. Although some of the Joker’s strategy sessions went on so long, it was like the henchmen were there all the time anyway.
But there hadn’t been any meetings for the last few nights. The dental fiasco had put the Joker in a foul disposition. Harley had gone along with ambushing Gordon at the dentist even though she’d been sure there was no chance of it going off the way the Joker imagined—if he had imagined anything. Her puddin’ had figured out how to get into the dental practice but not how they’d get away afterward. She hadn’t even been sure whether he was going to injure Gordon, kidnap him, or kill him. Not unusual—the Joker enjoyed improvising on the fly. Harley just wished he would tell her when they were winging it so she could be ready.
She hadn’t dared ask him. The Joker didn’t take being questioned or criticized well. And she should have known better than to appropriate a punchline—he was the Joker. She was only Harley Quinn.
Meanwhile, the henchmen were all walking on eggshells. The Joker could blow a guy’s head off for one wrong word or a funny look. Or if they bored him. Or just because he felt like blowing someone’s head off and didn’t care whose. Those guys didn’t know what it was like to have such a brilliant mind with so many ideas ricocheting around in it. There weren’t enough hours in the day to think about all of them, so it was no wonder the Joker got tetchy sometimes. He was a complicated person and only Harley understood him.
As brilliant as he was, though, he was still very much a man, and Harley knew how to help a man unwind and put a smile on his face. She rummaged through her things and found her prettiest little red negligee. Yeah, this would definitely lift his spirits; she put it on, touched up her clown-white, straightened her harlequin hat, and pirouetted out of the screened-off area that served as their bedroom singing about how pretty she felt. The Joker liked her singing voice. (What he’d actually said was: her voice didn’t make him want to drive ice picks into his ears. Close enough for jazz.)
Her puddin’ was at his desk, which sat atop a raised platform under a light. She worried about him going up and down the stairs because there were no railings and he didn’t have a gymnast’s balance. But he liked watching her balance. She thought.
Harley danced up the steps to where the Joker was shuffling papers and scribbling notes. He had been at this for ages—time for a break! She cleared her throat. The Joker gave no sign he’d heard her. Sometimes he concentrated so hard, a bomb could go off right beside him and he’d never notice.
Harley climbed up onto the desk and struck the pose her gymnastics teacher had told her was graceful but just a bit too sexy for regular competition.
“Ahem,” she said, low and throaty.
The Joker didn’t look up. “Go ’way. I’m busy.”
“Aw, c’mon, puddin’,” she said. “Doncha wanna rev up your Harley? Vroom, vroom!” She gunned an invisible motorcycle. The Joker made a sharp gesture with one arm and she tumbled off the desk onto the floor.
“Oopsie!” she sang, popping up beside him. “C’mon, sweetie—I’ve got the whoopee cushion!”
The Joker gave a long, put-upon groan. “Listen, cupcake,” he said, taking her chin in one hand. “Daddy’s got a lot of work to do and you’re not helping.” His features twisted up with rage as he yelled into her face. “Just like you weren’t helping with that stupid teeth-chattering gag!” He shoved her away as he got up and began pacing.
“Well, hey—” Harley got off the desk to follow him. “You don’t like the teeth? Then forget the teeth! I can do better.”
&nb
sp; “Oh, no-no-no-no-no.” The Joker glared at her. “I let you collaborate once and you blew it, little girl. That set-up was corny—old hat! Unworthy of my genius!”
“I thought it was funny,” Harley mumbled. And it got Batman to show up like he was supposed to, she added silently.
The Joker shook his head. “It’s time I capped off this running feud with a real corker,” he said. “The ultimate humiliation of Batman. Followed by his deliciously delirious death!” He went back to the desk and began shuffling through the papers again. “There’s got to be something in here I can use—something really funny!”
Harley shrugged. “Why doncha just shoot him and be done with it?”
The Joker slowly straightened up and turned to look at her through narrowed eyes. “‘Just shoot him’? Is that what you said—‘Just shoot him’?”
Me and my big mouth, Harley thought as the Joker stalked toward her.
“Know this, my sweet,” he snarled, looming over her the way he always did when he was especially angry. “The death of Batman must be nothing less than a masterpiece!” Something squirted out of the flower in his lapel and Harley ducked just in time. It hit the dartboard with Batman’s picture on it behind her and ate holes in it with a ghastly hissing noise.
“It must be the triumph of my comic genius over Batman’s ridiculous mask and gadgets!” The Joker suddenly ran back to the desk and spread out a roll of paper. “Aha! The Death of a Hundred Smiles! Yes, it’s perfect!”
Harley followed, hanging back so as not to get hit accidentally when he gesticulated. He was having another one of his energy surges. (She refused to call them manic episodes; her puddin’ wasn’t manic. He was a genius with higher-than-average energy levels.)
“I’ll lure Batman to some remote, out-of-the-way place,” the Joker was saying. “And when he least expects it—BANG!” He swung his fist, narrowly missing the side of Harley’s head as she ducked. “A hidden trapdoor drops him into my specially prepared piranha tank!” He danced around, hugging the plans to his chest and laughing gleefully. “The last thing Batman will see is all those beautiful, hungry smiles as they tear into his flesh and—”