Max nodded at all the performers around them.
“Ah,” he remarked, “your—extended family.”
The Penguin sighed. Max was leading up to something. His lists would have to wait for the minute.
“Come on downstairs, Oswald,” Max urged. “I have a—surprise.”
The Penguin scowled. “I don’t like surprises.” Sometimes, The Penguin still thought it was a mistake to come out of those sewers.
But Max was insistent. He waved The Penguin away from his desk and toward a spiral stairs.
Hesitantly, The Penguin walked forward. So far, Max had more than held up his part of the bargain. And the businessman certainly knew, should anything happen to The Penguin, his circus friends were very good at revenge.
So this had to be something good.
Still, The Penguin thought of icy waters.
“Don’t want to spoil it!” Max explained as he tried to put his hands over the Penguin’s eyes.
The Penguin growled. Trusting people was one thing, but certain people were asking for it. Max quickly pulled his hands away.
“Then close your eyes,” Max insisted.
Oh, all right. The Penguin dutifully closed his eyes almost all the way as Max led him down the stairs. This had better be good, or he’d let the circus gang practice on Max even earlier than he had planned.
He opened his eyes when they went from stairs to concrete.
“Ta-da!” Max announced.
The Penguin looked around the storefront. It had been transformed from an old drugstore into something bustling and cheerful, full of brand-new desks and state-of-the-art computers and smiling college kids. The place had gotten a bright white coat of paint, too, after which the walls had been covered with red, white, and blue bunting. But the most astonishing things here were the signs and posters, the biggest of which read COBBLEPOT FOR MAYOR.
As if this wasn’t enough, there were posters taped all around, and every one had The Penguin’s picture on it, along with the words OZZIE VS. THE INSIDERS!
Everyone cheered and applauded. Max’s grin got even bigger.
The Penguin was flabbergasted.
“But—” he began. “What—” he added. “I—I mean—” he tried.
He didn’t know what he meant.
What was going on here?
“Yes,” Max said effusively, “adulation is a cross to bear. God knows I know. But someone’s got to supplant our standing-in-the-way-of-progress mayor, and don’t deny it, Mr. Cobblepot, your charisma is bigger than both of us!”
“Mayor?” The Penguin replied.
Max smiled and grinned. “Mayor.”
But this didn’t make any sense, even to somebody who had lived most of his life in the sewers.
“Max,” he pointed out, “elections happen in November. Is this not late December?”
Max waved a well-dressed pair forward; so well-dressed that they smelled of money, and success, and power. One man and one woman, both wearing appropriately dark-colored suits, both smiling perfectly gleaming white smiles.
They made The Penguin nervous.
The man stared critically at The Penguin before his smile returned.
“Keep the umbrella!” he announced. “Works for you! I’m Josh. Here!” He shoved something in The Penguin’s mouth. “Reclaim your birthright!”
The Penguin glared down at the new object between his lips. It was a jet-black cigarette holder. The woman was circling him now. The Penguin wished he were back upstairs with his yellow notepads.
“I’m Jen,” she announced as she grabbed his sleeve. “Stand still for a second while I slip on these little glove thingies—”
Glove thingies? The Penguin glanced over at her handiwork. She was rather attractive under that suit. And he would certainly like to get under that suit. Her smile turned to a grimace as she touched his flippers. It was, The Penguin guessed, just that special way he had with women.
“Our research tells us that voters like fingers,” Jen explained as she slipped on the deep black material.
The Penguin frowned at his new gloves. Still, if women liked fingers rather than flippers—
That Josh person, in the meantime, was fingering The Penguin’s coat. Now what was this guy’s problem? Sure The Penguin’s clothes were worn, certainly they were tattered, and perhaps the fabric had stood so much use that it had turned a bit shiny, but as far as The Penguin was concerned, these clothes were a part of him.
“Not a lot of reflective surfaces down in that sewer, huh?” Josh remarked.
Reflective surfaces? Oh, he meant mirrors. Jen laughed. The Penguin liked the way she laughed. He laughed, too. All the people around them started to laugh as well.
“Still,” The Penguin remarked, “it could be worse. My nose could be gushing blood.”
Josh frowned at that. “Your nose could? What do you mean?”
So The Penguin bit him, quickly, viciously, right on the nose. Make fun of him, would they? Well, the penguins who had raised him had shown him a trick or two!
“Enough!” Max called, pulling the two combatants apart. “Everyone—”
He waved them all back to work as Josh fainted to the floor. The fellow had no stamina at all. Max would have to get a better grade of consultant than that to keep up with The Penguin!
Max led the short man in black over to a quiet corner.
“You’re right,” Max admitted when they could not be overheard. “We missed the regularly scheduled election. But elected officials can be recalled, impeached, given the boot! Think of Nixon, Meachem, Barry—” He paused, and pointed to the great banner overhead. “Then think of you, Oswald Cobblepot, filling the void.”
But Oswald Cobblepot was still watching Jen. “I’d like to fill her void,” he murmured.
“We need signatures,” Max insisted. “To overturn the ballot. I can supply those, Oswald.”
“Teach her my ‘French flipper’ trick,” The Penguin continued. It was amazing, the wonderful things you could learn while working for the circus.
“Oswald,” Max persevered. “We need one more thing.”
The Penguin blinked. Oh, yes. The Mayor’s office; that’s what they were talking about, wasn’t it?
“A platform?” he suggested. “Let me see. ‘Stop Global Warming! Start Global Cooling!’ Make the world a giant icebox—”
“That’s fine, Oswald,” Max agreed all too readily. “But to get the mayor recalled, we still need a catalyst, a trigger, an incident.”
Yeah, The Penguin thought, mayor. Now that he had gotten used to the idea, he really liked it. He could hear them now.
“You’re doing great, Mayor Cobblepot,” he said aloud. Yeah. He liked the sound of that. And more than that. “Your table is ready, Mayor Cobblepot.” And how about women? Women like Jen? Hey, once he was mayor, he would have his pick of women! “I need you, Oswald. I need you now. That’s the biggest parasol I’ve ever—”
“Like the Reichstag fire,” Max continued urgently. “The Gulf of Tonkin.”
What was Max saying? Perhaps that The Penguin wasn’t mayor quite yet. Okay, he would accept that. After all, he used to do twelve shows a day; he could handle anything.
But there was work to do. Dirty work. And The Penguin knew just who could do it.
“Ah,” he suggested. “You want my old friends upstairs to drive the mayor into a foaming frenzy.”
Max grinned at that.
“Precisely,” he agreed. “But they must always come and go via the plumbing ducts that I’ve provided.”
Then Max was suggesting secret sabotage?
“Sounds like fun,” The Penguin agreed. “But I—”
He hesitated. This was all happening so fast, he had almost forgotten his true purpose.
Max looked at him questioningly.
“I mustn’t get sidetracked,” The Penguin explained. “I’ve got my own—”
“Sidetracked?” Max interrupted. He threw open his arms to include not only their su
rroundings but all of Gotham City. “Oswald, this is your chance to fulfill a destiny that your parents carelessly discarded—”
Hey. Max had a point there. What was it that obnoxious pantywaist Josh had said? Oh, yeah.
“Reclaim my birthright, you mean?” The Penguin asked. Now that he thought of it, it sounded pretty good.
Max nodded, arms still opened wide. “Imagine.” He closed one fist. “As mayor you’ll have the ear of the media.” He closed the other fist. “Access to captains of industry.” He opened both hands and cupped them before him. “Unlimited poontang!”
The Penguin was impressed. “You drive a hard bargain, Max.” He paused only long enough to realize he had made up his mind. “All right. I’ll be the mayor.”
He turned away from the businessman, and walked over to the windows of the storefront, which were hidden behind a heavy set of blinds. Thrusting his new glove between the slats, he looked out at Gotham City at night; a city that would soon be his. He could have it all—the mayor’s office first, and then, with the whole city at his feet, he’d complete his sweet revenge.
The Penguin smiled and whispered three words: “Burn, baby, burn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Nothing’s as good as the circus. And that went double when the circus gang decided it was time to steal.
The Organ Grinder played a merry tune as his monkey danced, then pressed the plunger. Boom went the Insta-Teller Machine! The monkey danced forward to snatch the cash.
“All this dough!” the Organ Grinder exclaimed. “It’s burning a hole in my pocket!”
And that was only the beginning. The Fat Clown related every evil deed to The Penguin as it occurred.
“The Ice Rink was torched!” he said in that jolly way of his. Then, with hardly any pause at all, “The Twelfth Precinct reports offensive graffiti and—a pharmacy heist!”
The Penguin made a fist with his new black glove.
“I’d love to get my flippers dirty,” he cried in triumph. He threw his fist forward, smacked his lips. “Bust someone’s skull. Eat someone’s pet—”
Then again, he realized, that might not be the mayoral thing to do.
“But action must be balanced with discretion,” he remarked. Ah, the trials of office. At least they wouldn’t interfere with his other task.
He returned to the phone books and his legal pads. He had to add some more addresses to his list.
Gotham City was falling apart.
Selina looked out of her window. People ran, she heard three or four different kinds of sirens. There was a fire in the distance. She heard gunshots that sounded like they could have come from around the corner.
Miss Kitty meowed at her.
Why not?
She quickly changed her clothes.
“An orgy of sex and violence?” she said to her cat. “Count me in, Miss Kitty.”
She crawled out onto the fire escape. Watch out, Gotham City!
It was time for Catwoman to sharpen her claws.
Violence filled the night.
A woman with a belt filled with knives chose an ax instead to beat down a door. The gang members around her were content to simply beat up defenseless citizens who happened to be passing by.
Batman stepped from the shadows.
And all the thugs turned to greet him.
He reached down to his belt and pulled out a small electronic device that would be perfect for this occasion. He held the box in one hand as he punched four white dots, then a red, with the other hand.
The woman with the knives threw a blade straight into Batman’s chest. It lodged in the insignia of his body armor. He’d have to pull it out when he had a free minute. Batman punched in a second code to follow the first.
All the thugs howled as one as they rushed toward him. Batman pressed a final button, and two wings sprouted from the sides of the box. His computerized Batarang was ready to take them on.
The Batarang whizzed from his hands, ricocheting from the skull of one thug to the next, one—two—three—four of them in front of him, and then the woman with the knives, knocking each one of them cold. Batman took a step forward as the Batarang swooped back behind him and knocked out that fifth thug who was sneaking up from the rear.
The Batarang whirred away from its final target, most of its momentum spent, and headed back toward Batman. A poodle jumped from a nearby doorway and caught the Batarang in its mouth. It leapt back to a woman in a ragged circus costume, and both of them took off down the alley.
Perhaps, Batman thought, he should take a minute to retrieve his property. He took a step toward the fleeing pair.
A man leapt into his path and proceeded to pull a sword from his throat. Batman gave him a quick elbow to the ribs. The man doubled over, and Batman helpfully removed the sword for him.
He stepped over the sword swallower, and found himself facing a thin clown with three sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest along with a small clock face. It looked like some sort of homemade bomb.
“I’ll blow up this whole—” the clown began.
Batman used the sword to cut the straps, then used the point to flip the bomb into his free hand. He rapped the clown’s skull with the hilt. The clown sank to the ground.
Batman walked down the alley. He tossed the sword away.
He’d keep the bomb for a minute. You never knew when one would come in handy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Catwoman ignored the gunfire, the sirens, even the screams. She didn’t have time for that kind of destruction at the moment. She was looking forward to a little destruction of her own.
She walked up to the front door of Shreck’s, the department store of her dreams. Or was that her nightmares? She was sure somebody was going to have nightmares before this night was done.
There was that cute Shreck logo of the kitten, etched onto the glass of the door.
How appropriate for Catwoman.
She punched it out with her claws.
That was even more appropriate, after all. This particular kitten had grown.
She reached within the broken glass and opened the door from within. The entire department store was hers. And she anticipated taking payment from it for everything that Max Shreck had done.
She held out her claws, ripping the silk blouses and designer originals from a whole row of mannequins. It wasn’t enough. What she needed was music! There was a stereo on the floor here, used to urge the shoppers to get into the Christmas spirit. She quickly flipped through the tapes, discarding anything that had to do with Frosty the Snowman or little drummer boys. Ah, this was more like it! Some cool jazz. Just the sort of dance music for a cat on the prowl.
She turned up the music and looked to see what she could smash next. That glass jewelry case looked promising. She leapt on top of it, stomping her spiked heels down with all her weight.
“Oh, for me?” she called as the glass shattered beneath her, scattering gold and silver. “You shouldn’t have!”
Maybe she’d come back and scarf up some of the better pieces before she left. But first she needed to do some more damage.
She stopped at the Sports Department. They had trampolines. She used to love trampolines! Heck, the destruction of the department store could wait. She wanted to take a bounce or two.
Whoops. She had company. Catwoman watched two security guards approach as she bounced up and down.
“Who is she?” one of them asked. A second later, he added, “What is she?”
The second one nodded, openmouthed. “I don’t know whether to open fire, or fall in love.”
“You poor guys,” the Catwoman answered sadly, “always confusing your pistols with your privates.”
Almost as if they had been waiting for their cue, both the guards drew their guns. Catwoman leapt from the trampoline, kicked the revolver from one hand, then whirled and slapped the gun away from the other guard. Neither one of them wanted to put up much of a fight. She cartwheeled over to the wall, and punche
d open a wall tile. Why, look what we have here. A propane tank! The way she knew her way around this place, she almost had to have help from the inside—like from a certain mousy administrative assistant?
She flicked out her claws and cut the propane line. Gas hissed out noisily.
“Don’t hurt us!” one of the guards called defensively. “Our take-home is under three hundred!” the other added.
“You’re overpaid,” Catwoman agreed. She stuck out a taloned thumb. “Hit the road.”
The guards ran as Catwoman skipped over to the Automotive Department. All these aerosol cans would do the job quite nicely. Next stop would be “Today’s Kitchen” and all those lovely microwaves. A few aerosol cans in a few microwaves, and those cheerful beeps as the microwaves were turned on, and hey—
Shreck’s Department Store was going to have a party!
Batman staggered forward. Someone had hit him so hard in the back that he felt it even through his body armor. Batman spun around, and saw the Tatooed Strongman.
“Before I kill you, I let you hit me,” the Tatooed Strongman said with a laugh. He flexed his tattoos. “Hit me. Come on, hit as hard as you can. I need a good laugh.”
Batman pushed both his fists into the Tatooed Strongman’s stomach. The Tatooed Strongman roared with laughter.
“You call that a—”
He stopped laughing when he saw that Batman hadn’t used his hands to punch so much as to attach a bomb to the strongman’s leopard skin. Before the Tatooed Strongman could react, Batman finally gave him a firm push, down a nearby open manhole. Amazing the way there were always open manholes around The Penguin’s thugs.
The strongman’s falling scream was cut short by an explosion. Smoke rose from the manhole as Batman turned away.
There, on the other side of the street, was The Penguin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Penguin paused to shake the debris from his umbrella. My, things were certainly getting out of hand down here.
He looked up and saw Batman.
The Penguin tensed, ready to use one of his umbrella’s special tricks. But instead of attacking, the man in the mask indicated the chaos around them.
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