by Winston Lyon
“And thereby they’ll play into our hands. Clever, Boy Wonder. Devilishly clever!”
“Thank you, sir,” Robin said. “Batmobile—over and out!”
At twenty minutes past two, Bruce Wayne and Miss Kitka emerged arm in arm from the Twinkle Nightclub. They were laughing.
The hansom cab, which had been patiently waiting a short distance down the street, clip-clopped toward them. The driver tipped his hat, and Bruce Wayne helped Miss Kitka up into the rear seat of the hansom cab.
“Shades of Smolenski!” suddenly gasped Miss Kitka. “What is that?”
Against the topmost pinnacle of Gotham City tower flashed a round yellow circle of light with the figure of a winged bat within it.
Bruce Wayne was astonished. “That’s incredible. I don’t…” And then he understood that this was Robin’s way of inviting the criminals to attack while the police were ready and waiting for them. “Ah. Of course. How clever.”
Miss Kitka’s voice had a slightly sharper edge. “Clever, Comrade Wayne?”
He had made a slip of the tongue. As Bruce Wayne, he would have no reason to believe that the appearance of the Batsignal could be in any way a clever ruse.
He recovered quickly, hurrying to add with scarcely a break: “I mean—it’s a clever device. You see, Miss Kitka, that is the famous Batsignal. It is flashed from the roof of police headquarters onto Gotham City Tower in order to summon Batman and Robin. Isn’t it exciting to think that at this very moment Batman and Robin are racing there in answer to it?”
Miss Kitka gave another glance at the Batsignal.
“Is it entirely a coincidence, dear comrade?”
Bruce Wayne felt slightly uncomfortable. “I don’t think I know what you mean.”
“Is it possible that you asked the police to call in Batman and Robin—for my protection?”
“Whatever gave you that idea, Miss Kitka?”
“Oh, I’ve been aware, dear comrade, that you are acting as my protector. You think that I am in danger because I received that note from your American bandit, the Riddler.”
Miss Kitka was as intelligent and perceptive as she was beautiful, Bruce Wayne thought. He decided that the only way was to tell her the truth—that part of the truth he could risk telling her.
“Er…yes, it is true that I think you need protection, Miss Kitka. And you’re quite right that I did inform the police and that they are working now with Batman and Robin to see that no harm comes to you.” He put his arm about Miss Kitka’s shoulders. “I hope you don’t object to my taking precautions in regard to your safety. Your safety is very important to me, Miss Kitka.”
She snuggled closer. “How purrfectly wonderful of you to say that.”
Her lips were tantalizingly close. Bruce Wayne moved toward her but she did not appear to be aware of his intention. She turned her head away.
“When I close my eyes,” she said, “I dream of savage cossacks racing over the steppes on their brutal raids. What do you dream of, dear comrade?”
Bruce Wayne said, “Something quite different.”
“Close your eyes now and tell me.”
Bruce Wayne closed his eyes. Yes, his dream was quite astonishingly different. It had nothing at all to do with cossacks.
Miss Kitka’s sultry whisper reached him. “Keep your eyes closed, dear comrade.”
“Any particular reason?”
He felt soft lips brush against his cheek. “Da, da. I wish you to continue with your dream.”
Bruce Wayne relaxed. He sank down slightly in his seat. He half-expected Miss Kitka to do likewise. But he didn’t mind when she didn’t. He was continuing with his dream, and it was very satisfactory all by itself.
Miss Kitka, however, was busily taking advantage of the fact that Bruce Wayne was not watching her. With swift movements she pulled from her evening coat a large brooch in the shape of a jeweled cat. She flipped the brooch open to reveal a tiny radio transmitter. Working with feline smoothness, Miss Kitka took a pin from her hair, opened it in telescopic fashion, and put it into a socket in the transmitter where it served as an antenna. The jeweled cat’s tail was a Morse sending key on which she quickly and quietly tapped out a message.
Bruce Wayne stirred. “The dream continues,” he said. “Dear, dear Miss Kitka.”
“Da…da,” she answered, keeping a wary eye on him while she tapped out the message.
“It approaches a climax.” Bruce Wayne’s eyes fluttered.
“Nyet,” Miss Kitka said gently. “Not so fast, dear comrade. Be more slow.”
She closed the brooch and returned it to her evening coat. She put the pin back into her dark hair.
“Perhaps now,” she said, “it is time to turn your dream into a reality, dear comrade.”
Bruce Wayne opened his eyes. “Miss Kitka…”
“Will you see me home to my penthouse apartment?” she asked softly.
“I’d be delighted, Miss Kitka,” Bruce said.
At the headquarters of the United Underworld, the message which Miss Kitka tapped out came over a powerful radio receiver into a room where the Riddler, the Penguin, and the Joker were listening. The Riddler rapidly translated the dit-dash signals of Morse code into letters of the alphabet. The signals continued for a moment and then ceased.
“What does she say?” asked the Joker.
The Riddler cackled in triumph. “He’s swallowed the cat-bait!”
The Penguin snatched the paper on which the Riddler had copied out her message.
“She’s bringing Bruce Wayne back to her apartment!” the Penguin cried.
“The perfect spot for an ambush,” said the Riddler.
“Bruce Wayne will soon be…bat-bait,” the Joker said. His coal-black eyes glittered with excitement.
The Penguin said, “I’ll break out our jet-pack umbrellas right away.”
Said the Riddler, “Up—up we’ll go—and take him away!”
“An aerial kidnapping,” the Penguin chortled. “How fitting for such a master of bird-crimes as myself!”
The three master criminals opened their jet-pack umbrellas. These were fairly bulky and harnessed to their backs much in the same way as parachutes. From the rear of each pack protruded two large umbrella tips. These were miniature funnels for the jet energy that powered the packs.
“Shall we depart, my fowl-feathered friends?” the Penguin asked.
“I just hope these jet-pack umbrellas of yours really work,” muttered the Joker.
The Penguin burbled, “If they don’t, my dear Joker, you’ll have the last laugh! But have no fear. I will demonstrate.”
He led the way to the rooftop of the building, closely followed by his two criminal cohorts. The Penguin turned a knob on the jet-pack. Long thin streamers of flame shot out from the jet tips. As gracefully as his fat and waddling corpulence would allow, the Penguin rose into the air. He circled the Joker and the Riddler on the rooftop below him.
“Well, gentlemen, will you join me?”
Reassured, the Riddler and the Joker turned the knobs on their jet-packs. Soon they were floating beside the Penguin. Then all three criminals turned and sped off in a new direction.
On the night air drifted back the faint sound of their chorused “Yo-ho-ho!”
Meanwhile, in the living room of Miss Kitka’s penthouse, a luxuriously furnished, intimately feminine room, she turned on the hi-fi set. Low muted music filled the room.
“Do you like my apartment?” she asked.
“It’s very nice,” Bruce Wayne answered. “But don’t you think there’s—uh—a touch of capitalist decadence about it?”
Miss Kitka said, “Are not workers entitled to luxuries too? Come, dear comrade. I would like to show you the view from my balcony.”
She opened floor-to-ceiling windows and stepped out onto a small balcony. In a glittering panorama, they could see the lights of Gotham City stretch away. There was a crescent moon in the sky, now turning golden in the flush of evening.
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br /> She smiled at Bruce. “I suppose you are right, dear comrade. It is rather decadent and capitalistic to have all this.” She indicated the expanse below them. “But after all, I am a woman.”
“Indeed you are, Miss Kitka,” Bruce Wayne said fervently.
Her eyes seemed lambent—he almost thought he saw a greenish glitter in their brown depths. He moved closer. The scent of her perfume intoxicated him.
Then she was in his arms.
After a long, exquisite moment, she reluctantly pulled away from his embrace.
She stretched in the manner of a sleepy cat. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll slip into something more comfortable. Would you care to make yourself a drink while you’re waiting? I have an instant cocoa mix in the kitchen.”
“I don’t care about cocoa,” Bruce answered. “Not now!”
He embraced her again; Miss Kitka flung her arms about his neck. Her lips pressed passionately to his.
Bruce Wayne could have sworn that in the air there was the music of a thousand thrumming gypsy violins…
Robin again turned off the Micro TV Batscanner.
“Is that prudent, Master Robin?” Alfred asked at the wheel of the Batmobile. “After all, we have used the Batsignal to tempt the criminals into striking at Miss Kitka. This is above all the time for us to keep a careful watch.”
Robin said, “I don’t know whether it’s prudent, Alfred. But it’s sure as heck the only decent thing to do…”
Alfred shook his head worriedly. “Perhaps, Master Robin…perhaps…”
Across the crescent of golden moon sailed three black figures. The Riddler, the Penguin, and the Joker—each with a flaming jet-pack on his pack. They neared the eastern border of Gotham City where new tall apartment buildings rose in a phalanx facing the river.
The Riddler took out his binoculars and looked down at street signs far below.
“This is it,” he announced. “Seventy-third Street and Concord Avenue.’
“Then that must be her building directly ahead. The Catwoman has the penthouse apartment.”
“Forward! Down to the attack!”
Across a starry blue sky sped three Supercriminals—down toward the lighted windows that looked out on the balcony of Miss. Kitka’s apartment.
At this moment Miss Kitka emerged from the bedroom to where Bruce Wayne was seated on the sofa in the living room. Miss Kitka had changed out of her evening gown. Now she was wearing a sheer black negligee that clung to her lissome curves. She paused in the doorway, savoring the impression she made on Bruce Wayne. “This is much more comfortable,” she said huskily.
Bruce Wayne shook his head in unbelief. “There are no words to tell you how lovely you are.”
A shadow crossed Miss Kitka’s lovely face as she was momentarily disturbed by a thought. With an effort, she shook it off.
“You are sweet, dear comrade.”
Bruce leaned back against the sofa with his arms outspread along its back. There seemed to be a new languorousness in Miss Kitka’s swaying walk as she came toward him. Her face was illumined by the power of some new emotion.
Bruce Wayne said reverently: “‘And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams, Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams—’”
Miss Kitka halted. She reached out her hand and Bruce Wayne took it.
“That is poetry, is it not?”
“Edgar Allan Poe, Miss Kitka. ‘To One in Paradise,’ fourth stanza.”
“You are an unusual man—for a wealthy American, Comrade Wayne. I think I could like you very much.”
“I hope so. Because you have absolutely no idea of how much I like you.”
Gently Bruce Wayne pulled Miss Kitka down beside him on the sofa.
Miss Kitka closed her eyes and shuddered slightly. Her voice was muffled. “That dream you had, dear comrade…”
“Yes,” Bruce Wayne said. He kissed her bare shoulder. “Is it closer to reality?”
“Much closer.”
“Is it time to dispense with the dream altogether?” Bruce Wayne hid his face in the tumbling dark cloud masses of her hair.
“Do we dare?” he muttered.
“Why not?” A delicious shiver ran through the length of Miss Kitka’s superb body.
“Indeed, why not?” he asked. He turned her face so their lips met. When the kiss ended he whispered, “What use is a dream if not a blueprint for courageous action?”
She pressed close to him. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps.
“Into action, comrade.”
“I have the strangest feeling, Miss Kitka. I’m about to be…utterly and madly carried away!”
As he took Miss Kitka into his arms, his hand reached for the lamp near the sofa. A sudden series of strange sounds came from the terrace.
“Oh, no!” Miss Kitka exclaimed.
“What was that?” Bruce Wayne asked.
Her hand flew to her throat. “I thought I heard a sort of—fluttering sound from the terrace. As though some large winged creatures had just landed.”
The terrace windows flew open, letting in a chill breeze.
The Riddler, the Penguin, and the Joker bounded in through the windows!
“Greetings Mr. Wayne,” cried the Riddler.
“This is a kidnapping,” said the Penguin. “An you are the kidnappee!”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha!” laughed the Joker. “Our joke’s on you!”
On the sofa near Bruce Wayne, Miss Kitka put her hands to her face. She screamed.
CHAPTER 7
Miss Kitka’s scream impelled Bruce Wayne into action.
He leaped to his feet, seized the lamp, and held it high.
“Don’t come any nearer, you filthy criminals!”
“Here we come,” said the Riddler.
He soared up and at Bruce Wayne. Bruce was ready and waiting. He swung the lamp. It shattered against the Riddler’s chest. Right against the question mark on his costume.
The Riddler groaned and soared on over the sofa with jet-pack flaming, to crash heavily on the far side.
KLUNK!
Miss Kitka shrieked.
The Joker rushed at Bruce Wayne. His long lanky arm delivered a corkscrew blow that would have felled a mule. Bruce Wayne staggered back and came up against the wall.
POW!
Bruce Wayne’s hand snaked out to the light switch on the wall. He flicked it up.
Bright overhead lights came on, momentarily dazzling the Joker. In the next instant Bruce Wayne charged at him, butting him in the stomach and carrying him back into a chair. The chair went over carrying the Joker and Bruce Wayne with it.
ZOWIE!
Bruce Wayne landed on top and drove his fist to the point of the Joker’s jaw. There was a grunt of astonishment from the Clown of Crime. He suddenly went limp.
“What a tiresome pother!” cried the Penguin. He picked up the overturned chair and slammed it down at Bruce Wayne.
Bruce Wayne partly evaded the blow. He took the impact on his forearm but the pain of it made him wince.
He scrambled to his feet. Just in time to get the handle of the Penguin’s umbrella in the pit of his stomach.
UHHH!
The Penguin’s umbrella handle caught around the back of Bruce Wayne’s neck and hauled him forward. He met the Penguin’s fist traveling to the point of his jaw.
“Oh, I’m a sly bird!” said the Penguin delightedly.
He watched Bruce Wayne collapse at his feet.
The Penguin’s triumph was short-lived. Bruce Wayne caught the Penguin’s ankle with his hand, yanked hard and brought the waddling master of banditry down beside him. They rolled over and over in a bitter battle.
POW! ZOWIE! BAM!
Bruce gradually gained the upper hand. He forced the struggling, fuming, fighting Penguin onto his back. Then he drew a fist back to deliver a final blow.
In that moment something exploded at the base of Bruce Wayne’s skull. He toppled forward unconscious.
“My dear Catwoman,” he said. “How very opportune of you!”
“A fine trio of master criminals!” she said. “He was about to get the best of all of you.” She looked down at Bruce Wayne lying prone with his face pressed against the carpet. She leaned down beside him and touched the swelling at the base of his skull. “I do hope he isn’t badly hurt.”
“Eh? What kind of talk is this from the Catwoman? Not going soft, are you?”
The Catwoman drew herself up to her full statuesque height. She regarded the Penguin with haughty contempt. “I wouldn’t talk if I were you. If I hadn’t intervened, you’d be just as battered and beaten up as your friends, the Riddler and the Joker.”
Those two estimable gentlemen were now showing signs of recovery. The Joker sat up groaning, holding his jaw.
“What hit me?”
“You were on the wrong end of a punch from Bruce Wayne.”
“A lucky blow,” said the Joker. “No ordinary person has a wallop like that.”
“Perhaps he was inspired by a chivalrous desire to protect his lady love,” said the Penguin with a mischievous glance at the Catwoman, still in her negligee.
The Riddler dragged himself up over the sofa. He probed the side of his chest with his fingers and grimaced.
“I thought he broke a couple of my ribs. He really lumped me with that lamp.”
“Well, gentlemen,” said the Catwoman. “Shall we stand around discussing injuries, or shall we proceed with our original plan?”
“She’s quite right,” the Penguin agreed. Time for us to be on our way, my hearties!”
Alfred pulled the Batmobile to a stop near the corner of Seventy-third Street and Concord Avenue.
He glanced at his wristwatch.
“Much as one deplores the necessity, Master Robin, I do believe that we must take another tiny, tiny peek.”
“You’re right, Alfred.” Robin turned the knob on the Batscanner.
The Micro TV screen glowed to life. Robin was prepared to turn it off the moment he saw that Bruce and Miss Kitka were safe.
On the TV screen there appeared a clear picture of a demolished living room, lamps broken, chairs overturned, and debris everywhere.