“What if we don’t?”
“You really wanna risk that?”
“Come on, tie that down good and tight—you want to scratch the paint?”
“Do you think I can, Joey?”
Bruce looked around him for something, anything he might use. When his eye saw it, he smiled. A quick check of the sightlines of his enemy, and he crossed to the far side of the tunnel, silently swept up the old paint can, and fled back into the tunnel.
“Hey, Joey, what’s that?”
One of the clown police looked away from the flatbed railcar. They had almost wrapped up the Batman’s car. A couple more minutes and the thing would be ready to bring back to the boss with a ribbon on it. “What’s what?”
“I hear something down the tunnel. What is it?”
The Joey Clown raised his head. The latex mask bothered him, but you wore the face the boss told you to wear or you could end up not wearing any face at all. “I don’t hear nothin’, Saul.”
“Just listen, man, I’m tellin’ ya.”
Joey Clown stepped back around the flatbed toward the entrance to the maintenance siding. The old subway ran into the black in both directions.
Now he heard it, too.
“Aw, jeez, Saul,” Joey Clown griped. “It’s just some water running. We’ve been livin’ in these tunnels for, like, a year, and you ain’t heard water before?”
The sound of the water stream suddenly stopped.
Joey Clown reached down for his holstered 9 mm and drew the gun.
From the darkness, the sound of streaming water resumed.
“What the hell?” Joey Clown muttered to himself, his weapon held ready in front of him by his right hand as he fumbled to pull the flashlight off the duty belt with his other. The beam of light flashed down the dark tunnel as he stepped cautiously forward.
“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” he muttered to himself as the beam came to rest on a water tap protruding from the tunnel wall. Water streamed out of it, splashing onto the gravel beneath it. Joey Clown stepped forward quickly, holstered the gun, and began quickly to turn the knob, closing down the valve. The rushing water was beginning to make him uncomfortable. He had been down in the tunnel longer than expected. The stream of water stopped.
“I got it—nothing here,” Joey Clown said as he turned around.
The water started again.
He turned quickly, the beam of his flashlight falling back at once on the water tap.
No water was coming out…but he could hear the sound of a thin stream of water somewhere further down the tunnel. It was an all too familiar sound that made him more anxious by the moment. Nature was beginning to call to him.
The sound stopped…then resumed.
Joey Clown peered down the shifting beam of light, but try as he might, he could not discover the source of the sound—a sound that was calling to his bladder with rising urgency.
The sound stopped again, but the urgency remained. Joey Clown waited as long as he could manage, judging the sound to be just another leaking pipe among a million others.
As for himself, he was in urgent need of relief. The tunnel was dark and seemed as good a place to him as any. Joey Clown tucked the flashlight under his latex chin as he quickly unzipped the regulation police pants and reached down. This time the sound of water against the tunnel wall was a tremendous relief to Joey Clown.
When he was finished at last, he started to zip up…but was unconscious before he could button his slacks.
“Hey, Joey! What took you so long?” shouted Saul Clown.
Joey Clown just shrugged.
“Well, thanks for nothing,” said the Muscle Clown. “While you been chasin’ boogeymen, we got the job done.”
“Hey, can we get out of here now before the Bat shows up?” said the Nervous Clown.
“Yeah,” said Joey Clown, climbing up onto the flatbed. “Let’s ride with it.”
“You don’t think the boss will mind?” asked Nervous Clown.
“Him?” Joey Clown answered. “He’d be glad to see us.”
Bruce sweated under the latex mask. The clothes had been a close enough fit, and as long as he slumped slightly and did not talk too much, he could manage a fair impression of Joey.
Poor Joey. I’ll go back for him and turn him over to the police when we’re done here. He can manage a few hours gagged and naked in the dark.
The flatbed pushed along through the old subway tunnel. Bruce knew the subway system well, but there were parts of it that had escaped mapping. During World War II there were a number of tunnels build by the War Department that were never catalogued. Bruce had heard stories of Platform Sixty-one, a special underground siding that allowed President Roosevelt unheralded access to the city. There was an identical platform in New York, but its location remained a secret in both cities.
And now, if these goons were to be believed, they were headed off the official map of Gotham’s underground.
He thought they might be somewhere under Old Gotham on a sublevel never used anymore. They might be near Central Station—perhaps under it, for all he knew—and in the light of the switcher engine pushing the flatbed railcar down the old track, the walls of the tunnel were growing increasingly bizarre. Enormous cutouts from amusement parks began to decorate the walls, each one only partial and cut up into individual features—ears, eyes, gaping mouths, and even then never whole, never complete. They were random hieroglyphs that promised and tantalized with the hope of meaning and remained elusive.
Bruce touched the Batmobile lightly with his hand. Its surface gave way slightly at his touch. It was reassuring and was achingly close at hand. He longed for the power it represented and to be a part of that power once more.
Restraint is power. Knowledge is more important than strength. Wait to strike when the time is right.
The wheels beneath the flatbed railcar began to squeal. Brilliant light spilled into the tunnel as they rounded a turn from an archway ahead of them. The railcar holding the Batmobile slid to a halt at a platform next to an enormous vaulted room nearly three stories tall. Enormous dynamos stood in rows across the floor, coupled to engines over a half century old. At the far end of the mechanical space, a metal staircase rose to a second level of walkway that ran around the perimeter of the square room. All about the main floor of the room and lining the walkway above stood clowns in similar dress and masks, all cheering one man standing on an elaborate throne at the top of the metal stairs. His greasepaint was smeared and the makeup uneven, but his wild hair was pulled uncharacteristically back and bound behind his head. The lines on his face had always been hideous, but now they sagged with age, the skin beneath his chin loose and waddlelike. He still gestured theatrically, but the old spring had gone out of the motions. The suit was the same stained purple. He held an enormous Magnum revolver in his right hand. But it was, above all, the eyes—the terrible eyes—and the voice like gravel carving across a chalkboard that confirmed to Bruce it could be only one person in the entire world.
Joker…
“That’s right, children!” Joker screeched from his perch. “They stole it all from you for your own good! What a bedtime story: rob from the poor and give to the rich, ’cause they know what to do with it. We’ve never had any money—better let those who have handled it before take care of it before we do something useful with it! But I’ve got a better idea, kiddies! I say we take it back! Take from the rich and give to ourselves! And when I’m elected—any minute now by my watch—that’s exactly what we’re going to do!”
Cheers erupted again from the clown police, including those on the railcar. Bruce cheered with them.
“And so”—Joker bowed low, his hand holding his .44 Magnum across his heart tenderly—”it is with deepest humility and a sense of awe-inspiring hollow promises”—his voice rose to a crescendo—”that I announce my unopposed candidacy for emperor of the United States of America!”
The cheering was deafening. The yard engine that had
brought them here was uncoupling from the flatbed railcar and backing out into the tunnel again.
Joker raised up the Magnum. The gun roared in his hand, throwing him backward with such force that he nearly pushed the throne over. Clown police tried to scatter out of the way, but one caught the projectile full in the chest and was slammed back against an electrical panel. It exploded in sparks when he hit it, but that was incidental so far as the clown policeman was concerned. He was dead before he hit the panel.
“A terrorist!” Joker declared. “He’s dead so he must be a terrorist. He infiltrated our safe and secure home, and now, you see, I have made you all safe from him once more! Bad terrorist! We have to stop them…We have to stop them from making us do what we don’t want to do!”
Making us do what we don’t want to do? What is he saying?
“We want to be free,” Joker said, slumping onto his throne. “They are making us do what they want…and we want to be FREE, DAMN IT!”
Joker’s last words echoed through the room, falling into an uneasy silence.
The clown police looked at each other uneasily as Joker sat unmoving upon the throne.
“PRESS CONFERENCE!” Joker shouted, pushing himself to his feet at the top of the stairs.
The clown police shifted uneasily.
“I’m the emperor, and I’ve called a press conference!” Joker demanded. “The press pool will assemble here before the throne, and we will magnanimously answer your questions about our new domestic policy of a one hundred twenty percent flat tax on everyone who has more money than we do, as well as my ever-popular find-the-bastard-who-did-this-to-me-and-kill-him security policy. Questions, people! I need questions!”
“Sir,” Muscle Clown asked tentatively from the railcar. He was standing next to Bruce. “What do you want us to do?”
The Joker raised his head as though considering the question. “I’m glad you asked that. Actually, no one is ever glad they’re asked such a question, but that’s what people who rule things always say, don’t they? But in your case, because we are all men of action, damn the torpedoes and into the valley of death, I’ll answer that question.”
The clown police listened carefully.
Joker leaned forward.
“We…are…going…to…WAIT!”
“Wait?” Muscle Clown blurted out.
“That’s right! You win the prize, Bongo!” Joker laughed hideously. “We’re going to sit on our fat asses…pardon me, your fat ass…because…it’s a brand-new car! That’s right, Bongo…It’s a brand-new Batmobile with bucket seats, fine Corinthian leather, CB radio, eight-track player, AND more armament than any third-world country you can spell! And as long as WE hold the pink slip to this lovely prize, the Bat has his wings clipped here in the city. He’s not going to call a cab, because with all those wonderful toys on his belt he never thought to carry a wallet. He can’t hitchhike, because just look at the freakish way he dresses! His pal Gordon is under glass and…and…it’s too far for him to walk in time so…he will miss his date at the ball and I’ll be FREE!”
Joker screamed, howling with his hands on his temples.
“I cannot STAND these thoughts…these poisonous, ORGANIZED thoughts, ordered in neat little rows full of purpose and…meaning!” Joker shook with rage. “I want them out of my head…I want myself back!”
Joker’s breath was ragged. “He’ll come…He’ll come for his car, because he won’t want to report it stolen or his insurance premiums would go up. But mostly he’ll come because it’s HIS…and he won’t let ME have it. We’re old friends, you know…and getting older by the minute. And when he arrives we have to throw him a party and keep him here until morning so that those terrible, orderly, REASONABLE voices they’ve put in my head cannot have him. Then I’ll be free of purpose again. Then I’ll be myself.”
Joker’s breath was ragged, but then he smiled, his horrific face rising up as those eyes burned bright again.
“Hello-o-o-o,” Joker purred. “I think our guest may have already arrived unannounced.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GAUNTLET
* * *
M42 Platform Sixty-one / Gotham / 10:27 p.m. / Present Day
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Joker sang softly in a reedy falsetto voice as he descended the metal stairs, a poor imitation of Billie Burke from The Wizard of Oz, “and meet the young Batman who gave me this scar.”
Bruce stood still with the other clown police on the flatbed railcar next to the Batmobile. The latex clown mask clung to the sweating skin on his face. Salvation was tantalizingly close. The Batmobile lay under his fingertips, but the security access panel, hidden within the malleable skin of the vehicle, was just out of his reach to the right. He would have to locate the panel, key the access sequence, and dive through the hatch before the Joker’s clown police could stop him. Nervous Clown stood in his way, and he couldn’t manage it without attracting attention from the Joker and his sentry of armed thugs. He could deal with the Joker—but not as Bruce Wayne…
Not with only this flimsy mask.
“He fell from afar to give me this scar,” Joker continued singing as he pranced to the bottom of the staircase, waving the revolver over his head, “and Batman, he says, wants to repo this car. Batman, he says, has a fetish bizarre.”
Bruce glanced at Muscle Clown on his left. His stance was casual. The timing would have to be right…and time was the issue. He was desperate to get back to the mansion, and every moment he remained here meant giving Alfred—or whoever was involved—more time to cover his tracks. Bruce slowly shifted his weight to his right foot.
“You see, it’s really quite simple,” the Joker said in what passed for a rational tone of voice, belied by his pointing the .44 Magnum randomly around him for emphasis. “There are one hundred and fifteen of the finest Gotham police uniforms money can buy in the room, but there are only one hundred and fourteen ID transponders. Now, if I were balancing my checkbook, I might be tempted to just ignore minor discrepancies”—his voice suddenly rose in anger—“but I’m trying to run a BUSINESS here! And while I know…I KNOW you won’t appreciate the gesture, I’m trying to actually preserve our batobsessed friend from doing himself AND me terrible harm. So, I say it’s time for a little honesty between friends. I say we should ALL be special today. Now that the gang’s all here, I say we should end the charade, take off our masks, and let our mystery guest sign in, please!”
I wear the mask to terrify others. How strange that a lack of a mask should terrify me.
Bracing his hands against the Batmobile, Bruce gave a quick kick to the back of the knee of the Muscle Clown on his left. The thug’s leg folded forward, tipping the Muscle Clown off balance. Instinctively, the Clown next to Bruce tried to recover, but there was not enough room on the crowded railcar. With a short cry, the Muscle Clown tumbled off the edge of the flatbed, falling flat on his back between the tracks and the wall of the tunnel, the air rushing out of his lungs from the impact.
The Joker leaped forward as most of the clown police in the room drew their weapons. “Don’t kill him! That’s my job! Get out of the way!”
The clown police parted in front of the charging Joker. Two of them did not get out of his way fast enough. Joker lowered his weapon, shooting one of them in the back. The recoil threw Joker’s arm back behind him, but he kept running forward.
“Fair warning,” Joker shouted as he jumped over the shot clown’s body bleeding out onto the painted cement floor.
The other clown police on the railcar turned their drawn weapons toward the fallen Muscle Clown struggling to get up. Several clown police who had stood near him on the railcar, dove onto the Muscle Clown, pinning him to the ground. With the distraction complete, Bruce slipped slightly to his right, brushed his hand over the hatch pad, and quickly keyed the sequence.
“Hold him steady!” Joker shouted as he bounded off Platform Sixty-one. He landed on the tracks in front of the railcar and crossed to the o
ther side, where the Muscle Clown was being smothered under his restraining thugs. “It’s about time we had a nice face-to-face chat!”
The Joker knelt down and ripped the mask off the Muscle Clown.
A whooshing noise sounded behind him. The Joker turned to see a gull-winged door open between the binding chains over the Batmobile…and one of his clown police diving through the opening.
“Hahahahaha!” the Joker exclaimed, raising the .44 Magnum. “How I love initiative!”
The gull-door slammed shut, sealing seamlessly into the gleaming body.
“New game! New game!” Joker screamed, doing a strange shuffling dance next to the rail way. “Kick the can! I’ll provide the kick and Batman is in the can!”
“How do we get him out, boss?” the Muscle Clown gasped between painful breaths, still pinned down by his compatriots.
“Out?” Joker sneered. “I don’t want him out! I want his spam to stay in that can! I want him to sit in his toy car until the party is completely over!”
The chains across the vehicle started to groan. Joker raised his eyebrows.
Bruce tore the clown mask off his face, throwing it forcefully over the back of the command seat to the passenger compartment behind. He was sprawled awkwardly in the space, having jumped head first into the cockpit while calling for the hatch to secure. He knew that the reactive armor of the vehicle had passive qualities, but Bruce wondered why he could not hear the sound of projectiles striking the body.
He tried to right himself, but realized he had left the Batsuit he had shed earlier draped over the seat he was now trying to sit on. The Batsuit shifted under him, bunching up in places, and the Utility Belt was making it impossible for him to sit properly in the space.
What else can go wrong?
“Kronos: activate!” Bruce said, squirming as he tried to shift the Utility Belt away from his seat.
The security system did not answer. The Batsuit was present in the vehicle—a required security precaution—but the biometrics were not registering him properly out of the Batsuit.
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