Catwoman - Tiger Hunt

by Robert Asprin

  "You will load in the back," a man said in thickly accented English. "Now, please. No arguments."

  "You'll never make it to Canada in that clunker, Khalki." Catwoman recognized Eddie's voice. "Let's be reasonable---you take a look at what we've brought in. If you like it, we all get in the boat, we go out to where the rest of the merchandise is moored, we radio the captain of the Atlantic Star---"

  "Please, no. My way now, not yours. You will load in the back."

  "They're armed and they're nasty, Tiger. We better do what they say."

  That voice must belong to the partner and Eddie must call himself Tiger. Catwoman wasn't surprised, merely more determined than ever that she was going to claim him tonight. She began circling wide behind the crate out of the headlight beams, toward the light-filled gap in the wall above the boat. In a moment, she could see the pale, anxious faces of the foreigners and Eddie walking boldly toward them, arms wide open and laughing. He was not without a certain crass courage.

  "Khalki, friend, think about it. I'm offering you everything you want---everything you asked for, lifted out of the sea and loaded on a boat bound for Odessa."

  If the foreigner had any brains at all, Catwoman judged, he wouldn't trust Eddie. And it looked like he did have brains, and a twitchy finger. Another step and Eddie was going to have a hole for a heart. This was not how she meant for Eddie to die. Catwoman balanced on her toes, not quite certain what she wanted to do, or if it could be done. As it turned out, the decision wasn't hers.

  "Freeze!"

  Switches were thrown and cones of light descended from a pair of hand-held spots in the rafters.

  "This is the Gotham CIty Police Department. Drop your weapons. Raise your hands slowly."

  The foreigners were stunned; so was Eddie. They looked into the light, blinding themselves. The older man wasn't surprised at all. He advanced toward Eddie. Then a gun was fired somewhere in the rafters. Khalki was thrown backward by the bullet impact. Then the spotlights, and the men holding them fell to the floor, and then all hell broke loose.

  Catwoman scrambled for cover. Somebody shot out the headlights of the foreigner's truck. The only light in the pier came from the boat riding in the water some distance below. The gunman who'd been hiding in front of her aimed his weapon into the rafters. She didn't think he hit anything with his one round, but two other gunmen saw the muzzle flash. One shot got him in the neck. His death throes carried him into the light from below. When he collapsed on his back the letters "G C P D" were legible on his bulky vest. Eddie had drawn a weapon and was using the smaller weapon crates as a shield. He had the gun cocked but was too busy dodging to take aim or fire. The older man was nowhere in sight. The three remaining foreigners were using their ancient pickup truck for cover and firing wildly into the darkness overhead.

  There was nothing Catwoman could do except keep herself out of trouble, but then Eddie took a bullet in the shoulder. His gun went flying and he lay sprawled on his back, an easy target for every gunman on the floor or in the rafters. Screaming with pain and panic, Eddie thrashed on the planks, desperate to find his gun, to get to his feet.

  Catwoman got to her feet so he would see her and recognize her before he died. She was shielded partially by her black costume and partially by overlapping shadows. Still, it was a risky move, a stupid move, but she was acting with her heart, not thinking with her head.

  "Look at me, Eddie!"

  He did, and stopped screaming. He stopped groping for his gun. There was a lull in the chaos. Selina realized how exposed she was, how endangered her need for vengeance had made her, when something large and heavy struck her from the side, knocking her off her feet.

  The lull ended. Lead was flying again, and Catwoman struggled to free herself from Eddie's partner, the old man who was as strong as a bull elephant and uncannily adept at avoiding her claws. Every move she made toward escape, he had a countermove to keep her in hand and push her another step toward the gaping door above the boat. Catwoman reached deep within herself, summoning all her strength and will for one more assault. His face was a hand span from hers.

  Batman.

  Catwoman's discipline and training failed her. She lashed out with wild anger, and he dodged her easily.

  "You don't belong here!" he said in a coarse whisper as he lifted her off her feet. "Hold your breath and don't swallow."

  He threw her through the light-filled gap like a rag doll. There was nothing Selina could do except tuck herself into a ball and follow his instructions. She hit the water like a brick and sank for an eternity before she got her arms and legs moving upward. Gunplay continued far above her when she broke the water's surface, but for her the battle was over.

  The river water was frigid. The tide was going out and the current was strong and already pulling her away from Pier 23. Water wasn't Catwoman's element. It was a struggle to keep calm and work her way toward the shore without smashing into one of the slime-and barnacle-encrusted pilings. She was still navigating when she heard another body-sized splash behind her. Curiosity turned her around; the current pulled her under. She gave all her attention to survival after that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hours after hauling herself out of the freezing harbor, Selina crawled into her apartment. She was shivering from the cold and, she feared, from the onset of some river-borne disease. Despite Batman's warning, she'd swallowed more of the rank, salty water than she cared to remember. Several bouts of nausea had prolonged her journey home. All the horror stories she'd ever heard about people dying after one swallow of Gotham's polluted water elbowed to the front of her memory. Since arriving in the City she'd only been seriously sick---as opposed to seriously beaten---once, during her first winter here. That was when she'd discovered the mission.

  The thought that she might wind up there again refueled the nausea. Selina staggered to the bathroom and wretched until her gut was sore. Then she turned on the shower and sat beneath it with the warm water pelting her face.

  If the harbor water did make her sick, Selina decided that she'd call Bonnie. That woman would think of something, and the price of friendship was easier to bear than going back to the mission. The shivering finally stopped and she felt well enough to peel the costume off. She scrubbed it thoroughly, trying not to notice the brownish water swirl down the drain, and left it in its usual place to dry. Then, wrapped in towels and blankets, she lay across her bed in the dark, thinking about Eddie and thinking about Batman.

  Whoever would have thought that Batman was an old man with graying hair and puckery, alcoholic's mottled skin and wrinkles in his cheeks? She remembered all the times she'd changed her plans because of him---a man on the downhill side of fifty! Then she remembered how he'd tossed her off the pier.

  You don't belong here; those were his very words. It was almost as if he'd been protecting her like a father.

  Selina shuddered and pulled the pillow over her head. She was fantasizing about having Batman for a father! She really must be getting sick. Batman hadn't protected her; he'd come between her and Eddie Lobb. He'd been protecting Eddie! A muscle spasm put knots in Selina's stomach. She ground her teeth together and waited for the pain to pass. In her mind's eye the world was a mass of writhing, eel-y things with gaping, round mouths and sharp teeth. The spasms struck again, worse than before. She knew her thoughts were making her sick. She tried to redirect them or, when that failed, to make her mind go blank. She got rid of the eel-y things, but not Eddie Lobb and not Batman. Their faces continued to haunt her as she fell into a restless sleep.

  She awoke with a jolt many hours before she wanted to. Dream wisps tangled her thoughts, leaving her disoriented. Selina didn't recognize her surroundings. She didn't know where she was, or who she was, or what that infernal ringing was. Then her mind cleared enough to identify the telephone. She thrashed free of the bed coverings and answered it automatically.

  "Selina! Have you seen the papers? You've got to read them. Turn on your television!"r />
  The female voice was familiar. When Selina was able to match it to Bonnie's name and image, everything else snapped into place: her own name, her home, where she had been all night, and what Bonnie was chattering about.

  "The Feds waited until the TV crews were ready. They're going in right now; it's live on the National News Network. Oh, Selina---don't tell me you don't have a television. Hurry up and come up to the Warriors office, you can watch from here. Oh! There's the table. They're bringing out the table! It's all because of what happened last night."

  "What do you mean 'because of what happened last night'?" Selina kicked away the last clinging blanket. Her stomach remained sore from all the retching, but otherwise she felt fine. Angry and suspicious, but physically fine. She began to pace.

  Bonnie made an exasperated noise. "Right. Yeah, I forgot---you don't know there was a big shoot-out on the waterfront last night, because Catwoman was there and you're not Catwoman."

  Selina stopped pacing. "Who says Catwoman was anywhere last night?"

  "It's in all the papers. It's even on 3-N. Eyewitnesses---policemen---who say they saw you---her---step out of the shadows and then get thrown into the water. It's not like there're pictures, but everybody saw you---her. Everybody who lived, anyway."

  "What about Eddie Lobb?" Selina abandoned her pretenses. Bonnie already knew her secrets, and Bonnie knew what was going on. "I saw him get shot, but not what happened afterward. Was he one of the ones who lived or one of the ones who didn't?"

  The rustling newspaper created static on the line. "It just says that Eddie---they call him 'Edward, a.k.a. Tiger, Lobb'---was identified by the suspects and police as the man who followed Catwoman into the water. 'Although the pier was immediately cordoned off and the search continued until after sunrise, Mr. Lobb could not be found. Divers will search the water around the pier later in the day. However, unnamed sources at the police department suggest that Catwoman may have played a role in Mr. Lobb's apparent escape.' "

  Selina shook her head wearily. Whether it was the police or the media, they never got her role in anything right. "Unnamed because they're stupid and wrong," she snarled at Bonnie. "I could tell them a thing or two about who was helping Eddie Lobb get away!"

  Bonnie was enthralled by the possibility.

  Selina was appalled to hear the words her own voice was saying. "Later," she corrected. "I'll tell you later. We'll do dinner. But now you've got to let me do what I've got to do---" She waited for Bonnie to react.

  "Okay---I'll make tapes of everything. You can tell me how stupid and wrong everyone is. It'll be our secret."

  "Maybe," Selina said as she hung up the receiver. She lingered beside the phone, expecting it to ring again, expecting that she would have to ignore it, but it remained inert.

  The costume was nearly dry. Selina pulled it on carefully and folded the mask hood under the neck band and wrestled with the white seams. The gloves could be folded up under the sleeves, although she could count the number of times she'd bothered to do so on the fingers of one hand. She rarely layered the costume beneath her mundane clothes; even in the dead of winter she preferred to shed one identity completely before adopting the other. But not today. Today Selina wanted Catwoman with her.

  Batman was alone in Commissioner Gordon's City Hall office. The raid had been ruled a success, despite the gunplay. The two policemen who fell from the rafters were in the hospital; their lives had been saved by the elasticity. The officer who'd taken the fatal neck wound was being named a hero who'd fallen in the line of duty. Today that didn't lessen the anguish of his grieving family, but in time it might.

  As for the others: Khalki, the Gagauzi leader, was in temporary serious condition. The remaining three Gagauzi had been arrested, but the story of their tiny community's struggle for identity and independence was capturing the hearts of those Americans who could always be counted on to root for the underdog. Even the Moldovans---the other men in the rafters whose unexpected presence had reduced Commissioner Gordon's carefully planned raid to chaos---garnered some sympathy for their desire to forge a reunited Rumania.

  Commissioner Gordon had impounded the crates of weapons sitting in a Gotham pier. Batman, himself, had provided the navigational information necessary to retrieve the balance of the cache from its submerged mooring in international waters. A delegation from a handful of national agencies had already flown up from Washington, proverbial caps in their proverbial hands, to pay homage to Gotham's finest. He hadn't seen the Commissioner look so proud and happy in years.

  There were only two people not satisfied with the way things had turned out. One was Bruce Wayne, who had hesitated a moment too long making certain that Catwoman had surfaced safely after he threw her in the harbor, and lost Eddie Lobb in the process. The other was, presumably, Harry Mattheson, who had, by now, certainly heard about the debacle on Pier 23 and surely could not be pleased with its outcome. It was possible that Harry believed the unsourced reports that Catwoman and Tiger were in cahoots.

  Batman knew better.

  A television sat in a corner of Commissioner Gordon's office. The volume had been muted, but the pictures scrolling across the screen---officials from the Justice Department and the Customs Office hauling that bone table and chair out of the Keystone---told Batman everything he needed to know about Catwoman's involvement with Tiger from the very beginning.

  Batman used the phone behind Gordon's desk and dialed a direct line to the Batcave communications computer. Alfred was on the other end of the line almost immediately. It took a moment to assure the butler that he was in one, undamaged piece and to explain that he wasn't ready to come home.

  "I've been watching television. I didn't know enough about Tiger. Batman's got to stop her."

  There was a two-beat pause at the other end. "Are you certain, sir?"

  "Yes, Alfred, I'm certain." He was always amazed at the amount of concern the butler could pack into a few, supremely polite words. He shouldn't have been. Alfred went along with the Batman, but he never completely accepted the concept.

  "Very well, sir. I'll be along presently."

  Batman lowered the receiver. He cocked his head toward the door and recognized the rhythm of Gordon's footsteps.

  "Thanks for the use of the facilities, old friend," he said, opening the door before Gordon could knock. "I feel like a new man."

  "You're always welcome here. You're sure I can't talk you out of this? Lobb's body is probably going to show up under the Harbor Mouth Bridge in a few days, and if it doesn't, he's going to wish it had. The gumshoes over in the Federal Prosecutor's office are ready to take Gotham apart brick by brick to find their would-be canary. Word on the street already is that Tiger's chopped liver."

  "I've got to find him before someone else does."

  Gordon wrinkled his nose as if the wind had just blown something rotten past it. "You think she's innocent?"

  He said nothing.

  "Stay out of trouble," Gordon said as his guest departed.

  Tiger came to thinking he was already in prison; then he realized that the room was too small to be a prison cell. He was in Old Town. He'd come here looking for the almost-doctor who'd fix anything for the right price. He must have passed out when the sewing started. Tiger never had been a tough man when it came to his own pain. He levered himself into a sitting position. The hole in his shoulder felt like a bolt of white-hot metal, but he could make everything move. A stranger offered him an amber-colored bottle and a glass of cloudy, suspect water.

  "For the pain. Water now?"

  Tiger pushed the glass away, but he took the pills in his good hand. "Tell the quack I said thanks for the hospitality."

  He couldn't stand up until he got into the passageway. The sudden change in posture made him woozy, but there was no going back. Not after last night. It had gone so quickly, so completely. He'd never believed the sheepherders when they said their enemies would stop at nothing. As far as he'd been concerned, they'd always belonged
in a circus sideshow. And the police---who had tipped them? But then the black cat---the black tiger---had appeared, and he'd seen what he had to do. He got away alive. There was still hope.

  The sun was high overhead when Tiger came out the unmarked metal door. It hurt his eyes. He'd been out longer than he thought. He reached reflexively for his sunglasses, but they were gone, along with his jacket and his shoes. The shoes he was wearing were too big. The jacket was too small and stank of chili sauce, but it covered the bloodstains on his shirt. He tugged on it a couple times, just to make sure, then headed for the street.

  The Connection knew what had happened. There was no way the Connection didn't know by now. So Tiger was careful coming out of the alley. He checked both directions for the antenna-sprouting van. The street was clean. Tiger was just as cautious at the next intersection, and the one after that; then he began to relax. If the boss wanted to see him, the van would have been waiting for him. He wanted to get home and clean himself up before he met with the boss to square things up.

  On the edge of Old Town he hailed a taxi and gave the Keystone address. The cabby dropped the flag and steered one-handed into traffic.

  "You live in there?" the cabby asked, looking at Tiger in the rear seat, not at the traffic. "More kinds of cops parked over there than I ever seen before. Television cameras. The works. This guy they're after, he must really be something."

  Tiger went numb. The pain in his shoulder was a world away. He told the cabby to let him out a few blocks shy of the Keystone. His hands were shaking as he dug into his emergency stash and produced a twenty.