The last five words weren’t capitalized in the Gotham Gazette—only in Commissioner Gordon’s mind.
Barbara fixed him a butterflied leg of lamb that night, with a side dish of ratatouille. It was his favorite meal, and she knew that something was wrong when he seemed unaware of what he was eating.
“Please talk to me, Daddy. Tell me what’s bothering you.”
“The letter J,” he answered ruefully.
On the local news show that evening, there was the report of another murder on the streets of Gotham City, and she could hear her father breathe a deep sigh of relief when they announced the man’s name. It was Rudolph Bottoms, and he was a professional gambler. An unpaid debt was high on the list of probable motives.
The next morning, the headline about the slaying was one of the smallest on the front page. There were two others in a bolder typeface.
CRUISE SHIP SINKS IN GOTHAM HARBOR
Four Crewmen Injured as Engine Room
Explosion Wrecks Docked Liner
“MISS WONDERFUL” CONTEST WINNER
DIES IN RUNWAY MISHAP
Cindy Lou Skinner, 20, Suffers
Fatal Concussion in Fall
But it was a small detail in the subhead of the third headline that gave Commissioner Gordon his most unnerving moment of the new day.
GAMBLER SHOT TO DEATH ON BANK STREET
Rudolph Bottoms Rumored to Owe
$250,000 to Las Vegas Casinos
Earned Notoriety as “Black Jack” Bottoms
The letter J.
It was a tormenting, tantalizing detail, too obscure, too meaningless, too cryptic. Gordon knew there was no way he could inflict it as a “theory” on the various investigations now keeping his department busy. And to suggest a “Joker” factor was equally out of the question. No witness had actually seen the Grinning Ghoul, and what mad motive would the Clown-faced Killer have for wanting the death of these unrelated victims? Or was Gordon simply unable to find the relational factor?
He tried to stop thinking about it. He wasn’t a detective; he was an executive, managing the affairs of the largest municipal police force in the country. There were plenty of good investigative minds working on the problem. Unfortunately, one of the best minds of all was not available. The mind within the Microchiroptera Mask of the Caped Crusader.
When he arrived at Headquarters, he assumed that it was the sinking of the cruise ship Carib Queen that created the crush in the pressroom; it was certainly the worst pier disaster in the history of Gotham City Harbor. But he soon realized that the media smelled a sexier story in the dramatic demise of a young woman only moments after she had been crowned for her beauty. How could it happen? Where did the blame lie? Who was responsible for the weak structure of the runway where she took her victory walk, the last steps of her life?
But the most alarming question Gordon heard from the shouting reporters was this one:
“Is it true the police are investigating the possibility of sabotage? That someone had deliberately weakened that runway?”
It was something Gordon himself wanted to know, and he made a personal appearance in Milt Jaffe’s office to determine the facts.
“What’s this all about?” he asked. “You really suspect foul play in this beauty contest business?”
A Detective First Class named Bernie Wang was in Jaffe’s office, and there was nothing inscrutable about his expression. “Suspect, hell!” he said. “There’s no question about it, Commissioner. Somebody rigged up that stage. Somebody wanted to mangle that poor kid and they did a very good job.”
When Gordon saw his daughter that night, he felt still another kind of anguish. Cindy Lou Skinner had been very close to Barbara’s age. If Barbara had entered that dumb contest—and God knows she had the looks for it!—she might have been the doomed winner of that deadly crown.
But he found that Barbara couldn’t accept the idea of premeditated murder.
“The killer, if there was one, couldn’t have known that girl was going to win, Daddy. So how could it be homicide?”
“Maybe the perpetrator didn’t care who won, as long as the new Miss Wonderful was injured or killed.”
“You mean it was just at . . . random? What crazy fiend would do that?” Even though Gordon didn’t reply, Barbara guessed what was on his mind. “But that’s ridiculous, Daddy! Why would the Joker do such a thing? He always had some method in his madness, didn’t he?”
“Maybe we just can’t read the pattern yet. Maybe he’s trying to tell us something, in some bizarre, deadly code . . .”
She watched as her father removed his billfold, almost absentmindedly. Aside from the currency, she knew its contents only too well. One credit card, rarely used. Two pictures of Barbara, one as a toddler. One photo of the mother she never knew, her smile heartbreakingly sweet in the summer sunlight. And now, one other item. A folded slip of paper bearing the number that would summon Batman back to Gotham City . . .
When she saw Gordon return the billfold to his pocket, she said softly:
“Why not, Daddy? Why not call him?”
“No,” Gordon said, shaking his head. “It’s not the end of the world. People are killed every day in a big city, some accidentally, some on purpose . . . That man deserves a couple of weeks of peace, doesn’t he?”
“That’s not your reason,” Barbara said crisply. “You’re not worried about Batman getting in some beachtime. How can he get a tan, anyway, in that mask of his?”
“I’m sure it’s no joke to him, baby. Batman is human. He needs some rest. Besides, there’s no real proof of any kind of . . . conspiracy.”
“Well, I think it’s nothing but pride—stubborn macho pride! You just don’t want Batman to think you can’t get along without him.”
“I’m going to bed.” Her father sighed. “Maybe the headlines will look better in the morning.”
Commissioner Gordon’s bedtime prayers were answered. There were one or two minor crime stories on the front page, but the main headline in the Gotham press was an upbeat one.
ENGLAND’S QUEEN ELIZABETH TO VISIT U.S.
Gotham City First Stop on Tour
“Isn’t that terrific?” Barbara beamed. “Maybe you can pull a few strings at the Mayor’s office so we can be presented to her.”
“You know our Mayor,” Gordon said, cheerful at last. “He’ll use the visit to pick up a few more votes. That’s all he cares about these days.”
“And I suppose you’re going to get all hot and bothered about Security.”
“That won’t be our responsibility alone. This is international stuff, baby. We’ll do our part, of course, but it’ll be the Feds calling the shots.” He pulled her onto his lap, big as she was. “And what’s so important about being presented to a Queen? Since you’re already a Princess.” He gave her a loud “smack” on the forehead, and Barbara laughed, pleased to see his new mood.
The messages on his desk tempered that mood only slightly. There was a barroom knifing, with the culprit swiftly apprehended. A fire in a movie house, with the projectionist sustaining third-degree burns. There was a wife-beating, a gas station robbery, and only one murder marked P.U.—Perpetrator Unknown. It was a woman named Lola L. Finch, 58, widowed, strangled in the hallway of her apartment building. There was something vaguely familiar about the name, but Gordon soon put it out of his mind.
There was a hurricane of activity at Headquarters that day, and as he correctly assumed, the royal visit was at the eye of it. The trip had actually been planned weeks before, but publicity had been kept to a minimum for security purposes. And, of course, the FBI and Secret Service had formulated a plan that gave Gotham’s own police force an essential but secondary role in the proceedings. When he saw Jaffe, the Police Chief described the visit as a royal pain in the neck, but he didn’t seem all that displeased about it. Between the recent series of disasters and unmotivated slayings, his men had been working long tours of duty. It was a relief to give them a benign assign
ment like crowd control.
Barbara was ecstatic. The Mayor, as her father predicted, didn’t let the opportunity for political haymaking slip by. He quickly made arrangements for a reception at his Mansion, and concocted a guest list of Gotham’s most influential people. Since there was an arctic zone between him and the Police Commissioner, Barbara had no hope of receiving an invitation. But then it turned out that Mark Something-or-Other was actually a scion of one of Gotham’s most distinguished families, and they were on the A list. Cinderella was going to the Ball, and Prince Charming was going to be her escort.
Gordon was happy for his daughter, even if he still didn’t approve of her choice of beau. He was also content not to attend the party, preferring a quiet evening in front of the television set, or rereading some old Dickens novel in his bed, under a thick comforter.
He chose the latter entertainment the night of the party, only he had a hard time choosing the Dickens novel out of the bound set his wife had given him on their leather wedding anniversary. The memory of that time made him decide to browse through another kind of volume: the scrapbook they had started together to commemorate the first years of their marriage. It had ended with Barbara’s birth. Or rather, it had been the beginning of Volume Two, exclusively devoted to their daughter.
Gordon settled into his bed with the big book in front of him, and turned the pages.
There weren’t many photographs. Gordon had always been camera-shy, so most of the snapshots were of his wife. She smiled in almost all of them, and not because she had been told to say “cheese.” She had simply been a woman who smiled.
But what the book lacked in photographs it made up in souvenirs. There were dance programs, theater tickets, invitations, newspaper clippings. There were few items related to Gordon’s career, since he didn’t think police activities belonged in a family album, but if some item tickled his wife’s fancy, she would include it. Like the news story about his participation in a police raid on a burlesque house (anything didn’t go in those days). When the young officer had been assaulted by the selfstyled Queen of Burlesque who called herself Lola Lollipop . . .
Gordon laughed as he looked at the faded clipping. Even now, decades later, he could recall the heavily painted face of the enraged stripper, whose ferocious attack had resulted in his first service wounds. Lola Lollipop! She had actually written him a letter of apology a year later, when she had abdicated her throne and married one of the arresting officers. What was his name again? Finch, wasn’t it? Little Joe Finch, who barely made the minimum department height? And what was Lola, six feet, a hundred and eighty pounds?
Lola . . . Lollipop . . . Finch.
He stopped laughing and sat upright in bed, recalling where he had read that name so recently—in the crime diaries. It had been poor old Lola who had been strangled in the hallway of her apartment house. It was probably drug-related, according to the investigating officer, some neighborhood junkie who killed her for her welfare money. It was a reasonable theory, except for one troubling detail: there had been six dollars and change in Lola’s purse . . . A mugger, especially one desperate enough to kill, would have cleaned her out . . .
“Damn!” the Commissioner said aloud, a strict upbringing making it the strongest invective he ever used. “There’s something here . . . Something I just can’t see yet . . .”
There was a yellow pad in the night-table drawer beside his bed. He put it on his lap, and began a list of Victims.
The Bobby Armstrong Band
The Yacht Club Orchestra
John Burke, Headwaiter
Jackie Jeeps, Comic
Johnny Fisher, Columnist
Rudolph “Blackjack” Bottoms
Cindy Lou Skinner, Miss Wonderful
Lola Lollipop Finch, ex-Stripper.
He stared at the list. It wasn’t complete. There had been other victims of various crimes in Gotham City, but these were the most unmotivated ones that came to mind. Was there a Common Denominator among them? Was it “show business?” Was there some mutual interest? Was it some kind of vendetta? And what was it about the last entry, about Lola Lollipop, that had tweaked his intuition?
Then he remembered.
Burlesque Queen.
That’s how Lola had styled herself, as so many other strippers had (when they weren’t calling themselves “exotic dancers” or “ecdysiasts.”) Lola had been the “Queen” of Burlesque. And what did they call the winners of competitions like the “Miss Wonderful” pageant?
Beauty Queens.
Then Gordon remembered one “victim” he had neglected to list: the Caribbean cruise ship now resting on the bottom of Gotham City Harbor.
The Carib Queen.
His heart was beginning to pound.
He went back to the head of the list and pondered the death of thirty-six musicians and four strangers whose names began with J.
John Burke, the headwaiter who had caught God’s eye.
What if he had been called “Jack?” Like so many “Johns?”
Jeeps, the stand-up comic, no longer vertical.
He was “Jackie” and “Jackie” was a diminutive of “Jack”
Johnny K. Fisher, the columnist, now gossiping with Gabriel.
Born “John” and possibly nicknamed “Jack?”
And finally, Rudolph Bottoms.
Better known as “Black Jack.”
One, two, three, four Jacks.
Thirty-six players, four Jacks, and three Queens . . .
It was either a gruesome coincidence—or a ghastly nightmare. Was someone playing a terrible game with human lives? A demonic game of cards? Were there going to be fifty-two victims shuffling off their mortal coils? What was the object of the game? And who was behind it?
The answer thundered inside the Commissioner’s brain until he thought it would burst. His worst fear might be coming true, that the dreaded Joker was once again dealing a hand of horror in Gotham City.
It was enough to give him a splitting headache, and Gordon went to the bathroom medicine cabinet in search of an analgesic. But as he lifted the little white pills to his mouth, he caught a glimpse of his pale face in the mirror, and it seemed to take on a life of its own as it stared back and shouted at him:
“Only three queens, you idiot! Only three—so far!”
He dropped both pills and water glass into the sink and scrambled for the phone, trying to control his suddenly palsied fingers. His instincts didn’t fail him. He remembered the number of the emergency line in the Mayor’s office, and a special operator told him to hang on while the Mayor was located, but of course, he was warned, Hizzoner was very busy at the moment, considering the reception that evening . . . Gordon exploded angrily, saying damn! to the reception, and that he would rather speak to Chief Jaffe or the FBI or the Secret Service anyway and she damned well better hurry if she didn’t want a royal assassination on her conscience . . .
While he waited, listening to the arrhythmical drumbeat of his heart, Gordon tried to control his panic. It wasn’t only the Queen’s peril that was on his mind. His own daughter was in that danger zone, and who knows how many might die in an attempt to breach the security wall?
A voice on the phone.
“Mr. Mayor!” Gordon shouted. “Is everything all right? Has anything happened yet?”
“No,” the Mayor said sourly. “And it looks like it’s not going to happen. Lot of disappointed people around here. You calling to gloat?”
“What are you talking about?”
“About the Queen. She never made the party. Seems there was some kind of cabinet crisis back home, and she decided not to come. Lots of apologies, but that hasn’t made all these spiffed-up ladies happy. They’ve been practicing curtsies all week . . .”
The phone almost dropped from Gordon’s hand. He wasn’t sure if the Mayor heard his “Thank God!” If he did, he probably thought the remark was spiteful rather than relieved.
There was no way he could avoid explicating his theor
y to Barbara. When Mark Something-or-Other brought her home at three that morning, she wasn’t nearly as despondent over Her Majesty’s nonappearance as Gordon expected her to be. In fact, her mood was slightly giddy, a state he ascribed to champagne and the glitter of the occasion. It was apparently a little more than that, since she didn’t stop talking about Mark, Mark, Mark until sleep overcame her.
But at Sunday breakfast, she listened to her father’s “deadly deck” theory, and her mood turned solemn.
“Oh, Daddy,” she said with a sigh. “You’re not actually going to tell this to anybody? I mean, officially?”
“I know it sounds farfetched, Barbs. But think about it! What else would explain such a bizarre series of events?”
“Coincidence would explain it,” she said. “I mean, these four ‘Jacks’ of yours . . . Well, lots of men are named John, it’s probably the most common name in Gotham City. And a ‘beauty queen’ or ‘burlesque queen’ aren’t really the same as . . . well, the Queen of England!” The recollection made her sigh even deeper. “Boy, Her Majesty doesn’t know what she missed last night. Mark looked so handsome in that tuxedo.”
Barbara went back to bed, leaving him with daylight doubts and the Sunday paper.
The front page was full of political news, including the cabinet crisis in Great Britain, but there were some human-interest items, too.
SHORTY DAVIS, 73, DIES IN CRASH
Decorated Pilot in both WWII
and Korean Conflict
Gordon read the story with only desultory interest. Davis had been killed in a privately owned single-engine plane. Davis’s wife had been stunned by the crash, swearing that her husband always made an elaborate flight check before takeoff, and the skies had been friendly.
It was only while he was putting the dishes away that Gordon revised the headline in his own mind.
SHORTY DAVIS, ACE PILOT,
DIES IN CRASH
Wasn’t that equally accurate?
Davis was an Ace, and now he was dead.
The Further Adventures of The Joker Page 41