Wayne of Gotham

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Wayne of Gotham Page 21

by Tracy Hickman


  That was before Grandma Kane died and Mother sold the property to Kane Corp in ’65. The entire estate had gone into receivership following my mother’s murder. The company folded not long afterward and locked the doors, and the estate has been in litigation ever since. Gotham Bank acquired the paper on the grounds twenty years ago and locked the doors on a property it could not maintain and for which it never gave a damn.

  The faint sound of music drifted into his ears from the back of the foyer. He switched to night-vision mode and a brilliant rectangle of spilling light sprang into view outlining the double doors at the back of the foyer.

  Batman moved toward the doors, opened his eyes and pushed them open.

  * * *

  Kane Mansion / Bristol / 11:44 p.m. / October 26, 1958

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” the doorman announced to the hall, banging down his ornate staff. Bertie had been dressed as an Elizabethan footman and was all too pleased to maintain the appearance for his part.

  The band stopped playing at the far end of the ballroom. Brightly costumed oddities stopped their gyrations on the dance floor to look, while those crowding the edges of the floor turned in curiosity. Several of the guests on the patio beyond the French doors squeezed back inside to gawk.

  Harold Ryder shifted his Bell and Howell 70D 16 mm newsreel camera toward the entrance and pressed the shutter trigger. He was dressed as a cowboy for the occasion, taking for a costume what he considered to be the path of least ridiculousness. The camera held to his face required that his cowboy hat be pushed back on his head. The party was a bore: he preferred to be working the crime beat, but crime was down. He had heard about some action going down on Amusement Mile earlier in the evening, but by then he was stuck out here covering the cotillion crowd.

  Still, only a certain few of the guests rated this kind of general introduction, and their entrance was worth a few feet of film for the news broadcasts later in the evening. He had only a few feet of film left on this reel anyway and this would give him an excuse to run out the film before putting in a new one.

  “Who is it this time?” asked Virginia Vale, reporter for the Gotham Gazette. She was in her Little Bopeep outfit, complete with bonnet, but the illusion was spoiled by the cigarette bouncing at the corner of her lower lip as she spoke.

  “Don’t know,” Harold replied, checking the focus as the camera whirred on. “Number five hundred and one of the five hundred, I supposed.”

  Bertie straightened up in his costume, giving all eyes in the crowded ballroom opportunity to pay proper attention.

  “Dr. Thomas Wayne!” Bertie announced.

  The costumed figure stepped into the doorway to the applause of the packed ballroom. The clockwork camera drive whirred on.

  “Dr. Wayne looks like he’s been exercising,” Virginia sniffed.

  “But get a load of that costume,” Harold breathed. He had not bothered with the balky and bulky sound equipment and could say whatever he pleased, so long as he said it in a way that would not shake the camera. “Who’s he supposed to be?”

  “The Kane press release says he’s coming as Douglas Fairbanks,” Virginia said, looking down at his folded sheet.

  “Fairbanks?” Harold said. “Then what’s with the tights and the trunks?”

  “If that’s Douglas Fairbanks, then I’m Bettie Page,” Virginia snorted.

  “Don’t get my hopes up,” Harold chided. He released the shudder trigger, pulling the camera down in front of him. Without thinking, he flipped out the winding key, holding it steady in his right hand while twisting the body of the camera with his left. It was an old habit from his days as a war photographer in the South Pacific, making sure the camera was wound quickly and always ready. “I’ll tell you what, though…He looks more like a bat than a hero in that getup.”

  “Well, it seems to be working for someone,” Virginia said, pointing.

  Martha Kane, in her flapper dress and wearing a sequined white domino mask above her dazzling smile, crossed the floor and took her new guest by the arm.

  * * *

  Kane Mansion / Bristol / 11:47 p.m. / Present Day

  The air smelled strongly of burning dust and lavender.

  Batman’s eyes narrowed behind his cowl, his lips stretching thin against his teeth as he drew back from the assault on his senses and pushed through the double doors.

  The ballroom was enormous, and its extents were difficult to see. Everything was in motion, the room filled with dizzy, sweeping dance.

  Long, red silk streamers cascaded downward from the cracked dome ceiling overhead, suspended from a complex of horizontal metal rods, motors, and more rods—an enormous mechanical mobile that nearly filled the hall. Between the silk bolts, several dozen life-sized mannequin couples swung inches above the floor. The figures, suspended from the mobile above, swayed and whirled in their poses, each costumed for a masquerade.

  The noise of an old phonograph echoed from the distant end of the ballroom, a scratching version of a big band song.

  Batman stepped gingerly into the hall.

  Let’s see if we can crash this party.

  The walls seemed to writhe beneath shifting shadows of the silk cascades and suspended figures. Gaudy chandeliers glowed too brightly overhead beneath their cheap linen coverings. Thin smoke drifted up from where the old light bulbs touched cobwebs. Each of the enormous fixtures twisted and swung as the silk brushed them in passing, their hanging crystals sounding with painful brightness in his ears. The cracking paint and golden gilding of the plaster wall ornaments lay dulled beneath two decades of neglect. The soap-coated French doors obscured any view of the terrace.

  A pair of suspended marionette figures swung into view. One was dressed in what looked like a bad imitation of some of his early Batsuits. A female figure hung limp in a matching dance pose, suspended from the ever-shifting rods overhead. This one clothed in a flapper dress with the head lolled backward, jaw hanging open.

  Amanda Richter!

  Amanda swung almost at once out of view, wheeling into revolutions of the shifting figures suspended from the ceiling and disappearing among the red silk drapes that also swung in arcs through the hall.

  He reached down without looking to his Utility Belt. The Teflon-bladed Batarang snapped open in his hand. He checked the Batsuit power levels and discovered they were at 38 percent. There had been no time to recharge the Batsuit since its last use earlier that day. It would have to be enough.

  The figures jerked slightly. The recording made a ripping sound, as though the needle had been pushed across the grooves. Then another sound filled the room, hollow, echoing, and vaguely distorted. It sent a chill down Batman’s spine like none he had experienced before.

  “My name is Dr. Thomas Wayne…I suppose this is my testimony…or, perhaps, my confession regarding the events of October 26, 1958 at the Kane Charity Ball. I’ve kept silent far too long.”

  Batman stepped in among the costumed mannequins swinging between the silk cloth, his index finger set along the curved back edge of the Batarang, prepared to cut the cables should the life-sized marionettes get in his way. He could see the red flapper dress of Amanda ahead of him through the maze of shifting forms.

  “I could not rest until I had left a record for my sons, both of whom are dear to me. I could not bear the thought that they might be confronted by my past without hearing from me the reasons for what happened, how it had all gone wrong despite my most noble intentions…”

  One of the mannequins to his right moved.

  Batman ducked low and pushed under the arm of the Confederate soldier, shoving the Uzi in his hand upward as it sprayed a stuttering stream from its muzzle. The Marie Antoinette mannequin in front of him jumped from the impact of the bullets, the head exploding into plaster shards that clattered onto the warping hardwood floor.

  A series of popping cracks sounded all around him. A number of mannequins dropped into a crouch on the floor.

  Real and unreal. Living and
dead. Some of these costumes hold plaster, and some hold breathing killers. Which is which?

  Musketeers, ninjas, cavaliers, pirates, and shoguns rose against him, but they had one thing in common: they held identical kukri tanto machete blades.

  “…So I make this record for their sakes and for the sake of my own soul’s peace.”

  “The music’s changed but it’s still the same song,” Batman growled. “It’s time to dance.”

  * * *

  Kane Mansion / Bristol / 11:53 p.m. / October 26, 1958

  Lew Moxon stood in his gray cowboy costume with his domino mask, sipping a martini at the side of the dance floor and watching his friend in the ridiculous bat costume dance with the flapper hostess. It looked as though Bruce Wayne was finally making some progress with Martha after all.

  Lew had heard rumblings around the Koffee Klatch about something big going down tonight. His father and his old way of running the town was going the way of the dodo. They were all running scared of this Apocalypse boogeyman and were getting desperate.

  Let ’em sweat. Lew smiled, raising his glass to the bat as he swung past him on the ballroom floor. I’ve got my ticket out…Thank you, Dr. Wayne!

  In that moment, the double doors at the end of the ballroom slammed open. Salvatore, followed by six more from the Moxon gang, pushed their way into the room. Big Eddie drew up his Thompson, firing a burst into plastered ceiling over the screams of several women and not a few men. The band lost the beat to their song and stumbled to a halt.

  “Everybody! Down on the ground!” Salvatore shouted over the continued cries. “Play nice and nobody gets hurt!”

  Lew slowly sat down along with the fear-stricken partygoers.

  “We’re just lookin’ for a doctor who can make a house call,” Salvatore shouted. “Where’s Dr. Wayne?”

  * * *

  Kane Mansion / Bristol / 11:53 p.m. / Present Day

  “…had every intention of attending the event until Denholm Sinclair—then calling himself the Disciple—appeared in my rooms here in Wayne Manor. He assaulted me, rendering me unconscious, and then, using my costume, was able to enter the Kane Mansion under the guise of being me…”

  Batman picked up the Confederate soldier, continuing to use his momentum against his assailant. He wrapped his arms around the soldier, who continued to flail with his free arm, trying to maneuver the Uzi into a firing angle on his target. But the Batman pushed against him, swinging them both on the suspending cables. This launched them into an arc, rising higher off the ground as they both cleared a pair of pirates ducking out of the way.

  Batman swung with the Confederate, slamming his back into the mirrored wall of the ballroom. He heard the breath of the soldier rush out of his lungs with a satisfying “whuh” as the man went limp beneath him. The Caped Crusader tore the Uzi out of the man’s hand, breaking the soldier’s trigger finger in the process. The automatic came apart in Batman’s practiced hands as he dropped to the floor, rolling to a fighting stance.

  “I was unconscious. As soon as I came to my senses, I knew I had to get over to the Kane Mansion and stop Denholm. Martha was there. I had no idea what he might be driven to do…”

  Two pirates attempted to flank Batman at once, while the cavalier tried to distract him from the front. Batman trapped the thrusting arm of the first pirate on his left, using his body mass to add weight to the thrust-kick against the pirate charging him on the right. His boot drove deep into the second pirate’s gut, and he cocked the leg again at the knee, raising the second kick higher to the side of the head. The power-armor reacted at once, driving into the second pirate’s head with such force that his feet left the ground, pivoting him in the air.

  But during the second kick, the cavalier had made a quick advancing step, slashing across the Batsuit’s extended leg. Batman felt the Batsuit stiffen suddenly as the reactive armor engaged, and he pulled the leg back behind him and twisted around, still trapping the first pirate’s arm. He felt the pirate’s shoulder joint slip with a satisfying snap as he turned, pushing his body backward and flipping the pirate over him directly toward the cavalier.

  Amanda and her red flapper dress flashed past him among the long red silk drapes and the still-circling mannequins. The shoguns, ninjas, and musketeers were shifting around him, their blades raised as they looked for their opportunity.

  Batman became aware of an alarm chiming in his cowl. He glanced down at his right leg. A long gash ran across the thigh of his Batsuit. Black liquid trickled from the cut.

  What kind of blades are they using?

  The Dark Knight chose his target—a Union cavalry officer just to his left. He feigned into the man, who swung his blade too soon. Batman dodged, then body-kicked the man in the chest, sending him flying backward and scattering the suspended mannequins. Batman followed him into the thicket of costumed figures and leaped on him almost at once. He drove his left knee into the man’s wrist, smashing it against the floor and causing him to release the blade at once. His right hand drew up to take the Union officer out of the fight for good.

  His fist did not come down.

  An acrobatic blond woman in a dark green leotard had bound his hand in one of the long bolts of silk suspended from the ceiling. A second woman—a brunette—spun down a second bolt from the ceiling with deadly grace.

  Query and Echo? Riddler’s henchwomen in on this, too? It’s as though every criminal in the city is being played!

  The musketeer and the ninjas closed in, with Batman’s wrist hopelessly tangled in the silk. He gripped the cloth with both hands, trying to climb it, but Echo was shifting around him, wrapping the second bolt of silk around his swinging feet. Batman kicked hard, sending Echo spinning away, but she steadied the spin, swinging back toward him. Query drew in a third bolt of the silk, swinging it around the Batman’s torso, under his arms, pinning down the cape.

  The swordsmen below began slashing at the Batsuit above them. Batman swung his legs upward, wrapping his feet around the silk above him. This pulled him up out of the way of the slashing blades just as Query swung in again, trailing the long silk behind her. Batman pushed against the cloth with his feet, using his mass for leverage. He struck Query with a solid backhand blow, sending her into a fast spin, but Echo had wrapped his left hand from behind. Batman pulled hard against the fabric—the weave was supple enough that it would not break or sheer.

  Guns, knives, explosives…I survived them all only to be immobilized by a web of silk?

  Batman howled, raging against the bonds, but he had nothing solid off which he could push or have any leverage.

  Batman could feel the life bleeding out of the Batsuit.

  Below him, Amanda Richter swung past, suspended in the arms of a mannequin while his father’s dead voice continued to ring through the hall.

  “I came to the Kane Mansion, but I was too late…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SECRET IDENTITY

  * * *

  Kane Mansion / Bristol / 11:57 p.m. / October 26, 1958

  “Tommy!” whispered the woman in the red flapper dress, shaking as she sat on the ballroom floor. “Please! What do we do?”

  The man in the mask and the cape took her shoulders in his hands. His voice was deeper than usual—she would remember it as being affected with the emotion of the moment. “Martha, I’m going to take care of you…I’m going to take care of all of us.”

  The caped man stood up and stepped away from the red-dressed flapper. The mob gang at the door swung the muzzles of their guns in his direction.

  “I’m Thomas Wayne,” the caped man said gruffly. “What do you want?”

  Thomas staggered up the servants’ driveway behind the Kane Mansion, his medical bag in hand. He had clung to it like a life preserver when he first spotted it on the sideboard of the Wayne dining room. He had the horrible idea that he would need it.

  His head was still pounding from the blow Disciple had given him. His dressing room had come back to h
im as though from a distant place, and it was a few minutes before the awfulness of what had happened was fully realized in his thoughts. He dressed quickly in jeans and a collared shirt, slipping on his shoes without bothering about socks.

  Thomas could see the closed French doors off the ballroom. There were figures inside the glass, but the band was not playing, nor could he hear any other sounds. He was momentarily confused as to whether he should try to enter the ballroom directly from the patio or find another way in.

  His eye caught movement through the glass on his left.

  Through another set of French doors, Thomas saw two large men lay a third on the couch in the library. He recognized the man at once from the pictures in the paper.

  It was Julius Moxon.

  Thomas stepped onto the patio, peering through the glass of the doors. The two large men had left. Julius lay alone on the couch. Even from this distance it was obvious his breathing was labored and a shoulder wound was still bleeding badly.

  Moxon’s men are already here. Denholm must be somewhere about. Lewis must be around. If I can get the elder Moxon patched up before anything happens, then maybe Lewis can help me get these guys out of here before Denholm makes a mess of everything.

  Thomas tried the handle on the door. It opened easily and he moved quietly into the library, opening his medical bag.

  He had to fix this.

  “Psst! Wayne!” Lewis tried to get the caped man’s attention. “Stop it, man! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  The man turned to face Lewis.

  Lewis’s buzzed haircut was glistening with sweat as he stood up, pulling off his cowboy hat and patting his head with the bandana from around his neck.

  “It’s okay, folks,” he said loudly through a forced grin. “Just a little Halloween joke is all. Haha! These boys really had us all fooled. Right out of a Cagney movie, right?”

 

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