The Further Adventures of The Joker
Page 44
In his hideout, not all that far from the Clay estate, a jauntily bereted and besmocked Joker sang ad-libbed doggerel as he mixed oil colors on his palette.
“Sweet Turpentine.
For you I pine.
Sweet Turpitude,
O’er you I brood.”
He grinned at the blank canvas. “Ready or not, here I come!” And he attacked it, splashing and daubing away with savage glee and wild intensity, getting more spatters and dribbles on his smock than on the canvas.
“Oh, my darling, oh, my darling,
Oh, my darling Adrenaline.
You jump-start me and keep me going,
that is why my eyes have this shine.”
Sudden inspiration hit him midstroke and his brush dribbled a largesse of red over the chest of his smock unheeded. His face split in two. “I’ll throw that bat a curve!”
From his penthouse patio, Bruce Wayne swept the night horizon with his restless gaze. Northward, the suburbs spread out in a lacy tracery of lights; eastward, the stars melded with the bold carnival lights of Cockaigne Island Amusement Park; westward, the river netted moonlight; southward, the great ocean luminesced.
Beautiful, all of it, but a long siege of idleness left him bored.
A cacophony of car horns and police whistles rose from the street into his consciousness.
He stepped to his telescope.
It showed him gridlock all around the base of the Tempo Triangle Building, the world-renowned landmark at the throbbing heart of Gotham City. Traffic had stopped. Pedestrians crowded in from all sides, jamming Tempo Triangle. Everyone gaped at the building-girdling array of lights that spelled out the moving headlines.
Wayne sharpened his focus.
THE JOKER HOLDS ROMAN A. CLAY AND CREW FOR RANSOM. DEMANDS ONE BILLION DOLLARS. IN TOTO. THE JOKER CHALLENGES BATMAN TO RESCUE CLAY BEFORE AUGUST 1 DEADLINE. ON THE DOT.
The Joker! Wayne’s blood quickened, fizzing like champagne. Didn’t give him much time. August first was only a week away. Didn’t give him much time. But the more pressure the better. Made him push the envelope of his abilities. This was the challenge Batman had unconsciously been waiting for and he felt alive and purposeful and in command.
Wayne sprang to his direct-line speakerphone. Almost as though Commissioner Gordon had been awaiting the call, the commissioner answered on the first ring.
“C.G. here.”
“B.M. calling. I assume your people are trying to track down the person responsible for flashing the Tempo Triangle Building message about Roman A. Clay.”
“ ‘Trying’ is the operative word. The news bulletins and the ads are fed into a computer that switches the pixels on and off to make the message seem to move from right to left. The Joker has managed somehow to access the computer and impose his messages.”
“I see.”
“Er . . .”
“Yes?”
“You’re taking up the gauntlet?”
“I just now said ‘yes.’ ”
A deep sigh. “That’s a relief. I’m in constant touch with Clay’s staff. They’re preparing to convert his assets to cash—just in case. Bad business, this. Could send the stock market into a tailspin.”
Wayne listened but kept watching. New words crept around the Tempo Triangle Building.
CAN YOU LICK YOUR OZ IN A CAT AMOUNT, PARD? SEE YOU THERE.
“Talk to you later, C.G.,” Wayne said absently, and punched off without looking away from the message that was slipping around out of sight.
He waited for more, but the Joker, too, seemed to have punched off. The display resumed its normal town-crying of the world’s calamities.
Wayne replayed in his mind what seemed to him the key message.
CAN YOU LICK YOUR OZ IN A CAT AMOUNT, PARD?
He knew the set phrase to be: lick one’s weight in wildcats.
Oz. was the abbreviation for ounces. He turned to the unabridged dictionary. Ounce also meant the mountain panther (catamount!) or snow leopard (pard!).
But the Joker had written it OZ, without the period, as in the Land of Oz. And TOTO (pointing to Dorothy’s dog) and DOT (pointing to Dorothy) both confirmed that interpretation.
Yet, how could the Joker be waiting to confront him in the Land of Oz when there was no such place? Oz existed only in fantasy!
Wayne sat down with pencil and paper. He set his mind in neutral and began doodling, letting the pencil tune into his subconscious.
OZ.
The Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum.
Baum-tree.
Can’t see the forest for the trees.
Then, with OZ as his starting point, he found himself working both ways from it, upward and downward, in alphabetical order:
LW
MX
NY
OZ
PA
QB
RC
He stopped and focused on:
OZ
PA
Had Baum’s Pa been the basis for the Wizard of Oz?
He shook his head. He was getting sidetracked. He widened his focus:
NY
OZ
PA
Sensing with rising excitement that he was on the right track, he reached for the atlas. He turned to the maps of the several states and studied the New York-Pennsylvania boundary. He found lots of trees and a Cat.
With a tight smile, he pressed the redial key on the direct-line speakerphone.
“C.G. here.”
“B.M. again. I think you can tell the searchers to narrow the search to Cattaraugus County, right on the New York-Pennsylvania border, where New York’s Alleghany State Park adjoins Pennsylvania’s Alleghany Reservoir.”
“How—?”
“Please just do it. I’ll explain some other time.” Click.
As the hours passed, Wayne felt less and less sure of his deduction. When at last the phone rang, he turned to listen with an attitude more of bracing himself for bad news than of eagering himself for good news.
“C.G. speaking. Just as you predicted, B.M. A ground party searching the forests of Cattaraugus County came upon the basket and the deflated bag of the missing balloon. But no signs of the balloonists.”
Wayne’s satisfaction in having read above and below the Joker’s lines—for that after all was the relationship of NY and PA to OZ—was fleeting. His face set grimly. “It was hardly to be expected that the Joker would abandon his captives after taking the trouble to snatch them.”
“I guess not.” A pause, then, “The Joker left a note for you, pinned to the bag.”
“Read it to me, please.”
“ ‘Frankly, would I Ly, man?’ ” C.G. spelled out the Ly, man. “Do you know what he means by that?”
Wayne explained about Oz and Lyman Frank Baum.
“Oh.”
Wayne smiled crookedly. “Well, at least we now know one thing.”
“What’s that?” C.G. asked eagerly.
“We know the one place where Clay and his crew are not.”
Sound filtered down: the tread of many feet on boards, the cries of pitchmen, the squawk of sea gulls, the notes of steam whistles. The Joker felt restless. He gave his slight paunch a pat of disapproval and looked around at his henchpersons (he was an equal opportunity employer) with even greater disfavor. They were lounging and slouching altogether too comfortably in the dayroom of the hideout.
“Jane Fonda time.”
Groans rose, only to subside in wave fashion as his maniacal gaze swept around, dipping to take in a rugged dwarf. Behind the fixed grin, the Joker frowned thoughtfully when his eyes rested briefly on his right-hand man Leo. They had not yet begun exercising; why would Leo be already in a sweat? Guilty conscience? The Joker programmed himself to watch Leo from here on out.
At the moment, however, on with the pep talk. “Let me remind you, the Clay kidnap is the least of our planned exploits. While the forces of,”—he raised his hands to claw a pair of two-finger quotation marks in the air ar
ound the word good—“good believe we’re just sitting on our behinds, waiting to collect the ransom, we’ll be out there pulling other capers.”
There came a hearty chorus of “Yeah, yeah!”
“So, what say, let’s get in shape.”
There came a muted chorus of “Yeah, yeah.”
He cupped a hand behind an ear and said in a mild, questioning tone, “I don’t hear you.”
Leo led the roar of “Yeah, yeah.”
They knew what to do. They moved the varsity-crew rowing machine out from the wall and took their places on the sliding seats.
“Okay, Metrognome.”
The dwarf squatted at the coxswain’s post and beat time on bongo drums.
The Joker himself stood alongside with a whip, cracking it to encourage the oarsmen and oarswomen at their sweeps. Occasionally the lash drew blood.
“Building up the old lats and pecs,” he heartened them.
After the exercise period, Leo had so stiffened that he could hardly move and he breathed laboredly through his crooked nose. The Joker, however, though his face remained pasty, felt the glow of invigoration and was raring to go.
He and Leo left the hideout, and while Leo chauffered him in a Good Humor truck to a real estate office in Gotham, the Joker changed in the back, making himself up carefully in a three-piece suit to pass as a businessman.
Putting cash down, the Joker signed a long-term lease for an office suite of his choice in the financial district’s ultramodern Phoebus Building. Within hours, his henchpersons had moved packing cases of equipment in.
By evening they were all set to pull the caper.
“But first to twist Batman’s ears,” the Joker said. And he punched a command into his computer, sending a signal to the program that ran the bulletin lights girdling the Tempo Triangle Building.
That done, he swiveled around to find Leo biting Metrognome’s nails to the quick.
“What makes you so nervous, Leo?” he asked kindly.
Leo’s voice came out scratchy with fear. “Boss, is it really a good idea to tip your hand?”
“Why not, when I hold all the aces?”
Leo had no answer for that; even if he had he wouldn’t have dared voice it.
Bruce Wayne burned the message into his brain.
FACE-TO-FACE IN YE OLDE FUN MIRROR
He had no doubt it was from the Joker to him.
He waited for more, but the regular flow of news flashes resumed.
POWER BLACKOUT AT PHOEBUS BUILDING . . . TON OF COCAINE STOLEN FROM POLICE PROPERTY CLERK VAULT. FLOOR COLLAPSES; WHEN DUST SETTLES, POLICE DISCOVER HUGE HAUL SEIZED AND HELD FOR EVIDENCE HAS VANISHED ALONG WITH OTHER GOODIES . . . POWER RESTORED TO PHOEBUS BUILDING . . .
These he paid little heed to. They might command his attention later, but right now he needed to concentrate on the message and decode its meaning and purpose:
FACE-TO-FACE IN YE OLDE FUN MIRROR
The obvious thing to note was the “ye olde.” Why this anachronistic form in an otherwise straightforward phrase?
What if it signaled a further anachronism in what followed? What if the f in “fun” were really the old form of s?
That would make it a sun mirror.
The bulletins he had ignored flashed to the forefront of his thinking. And all at once everything tied in.
The Police Property Clerk’s Office, a one-story annex of Police Headquarters, stood in the shadow of the Phoebus Building. The Phoebus Building’s solar panels, a solid array sheathing the slanted roof and the whole façade, generated more than enough power to service the Phoebus Building’s needs; surplus energy went to Pro Edison, generating a nice profit.
Wayne swung to gaze at the Phoebus Building. At this hour of the evening, it thrust up like a dark finger with a light dusting of windowshine from nearby buildings. By day, the monolithic Phoebus Building would be one great glaring sun mirror.
Batman swung the Batmobile into the Phoebus Building’s parking lot. At the one break in the solar paneling, the glass street-level entrance of the Phoebus Building, the nightman recognized him and buzzed him in.
“Batman! Who are you looking for?”
“Good question.” Batman scanned the wall directory. His eyes lit up.
Joseph Kerr.
It was a short mental leap from that to Joe Kerr to then to Joker.
“Which elevator to Joseph Kerr and Company, on the eighty-sixth floor?”
The nightman took him up. As they rode, the nightman said, “I sure hope the power doesn’t cut off again. It did, for about ten minutes, an hour ago.”
Batman nodded. “I heard. I doubt that it will happen again.”
His nostrils worked, smelling burnt wiring and cindered circuitry, even before the nightman had unlocked the door to the darkened suite.
The nightman flicked the lights on. His jaw dropped. “What did they do to the place?”
“What indeed.”
A laser gun stood atop a desk shoved against the wall. The barrel poked through the wall. Batman’s nose wrinkled. The laser gun smelled burnt out, as did its cable, which was plugged into an outlet.
Batman stepped lightly onto the desk and held his hands behind his back to keep from disturbing the gun’s angle.
The Joker had punched a hole through the outer wall and through the solar paneling.
Batman peered through the gunsight. He stared down, down, down at the police annex. The crosshairs quartered a hole in the annex roof. At first glance, it appeared as though a giant drill had drawn a huge core sample up and out of the annex.
But what had happened, Batman saw was that the laser beam had sliced through in an oval. The Joker had made the cut at a carefully calculated slant. The disk cut out of the roof landed on the ground floor to one side of the pallets holding the ton of cocaine. The disk cut out of the ground floor landed, with its precious burden, in—Batman shrewdly guessed—the open body of a truck waiting in the basement garage.
Batman rode down in grim silence with the nightman.
The nightman called after him. “Don’t you want me to validate your parking?”
Batman shook his head without breaking stride.
In the corner of his eye Leo caught the Joker entering the room.
“Faster!” Leo barked at the assembly line.
The dust-masked crew stepped up its repackaging of the ton of cocaine.
Leo turned and feigned a start of surprise.
The Joker stretched his grin. “That’s right, Leo, let me disturb you.”
He looked at one of the new glassine packets labeled with the Joker brand name and with a saxophone J as logo. He gave a nod of approval. “I’ve just looked in on our guest. It’s a broadening experience for Mr. Roman A. Clay.”
The Joker’s eyes glittered and he rubbed his hands together. “Speaking of broads, let’s join the ladies, shall we?”
Leo shivered, but turned the supervising over to Metrognome, an even sterner taskmaster than Leo, and followed the Joker out.
Dr. Amicia Sollis was dining with Bruce Wayne out on the patio of his penthouse when the Joker’s next message flashed.
CHASE YOURSELF ON THE LOOP-THE-LOOP
Alfred his butler called their attention to it, and Amicia joined Bruce at the telescope.
“Another challenge to Batman?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“I wonder what Batman makes of it—that is, if he’s watching at all.”
“Oh, he’s watching.”
Amicia cocked an eye at him but said nothing.
“That’s his job,” he hurried to add. He grew thoughtful. “As to what he makes of it—well, what is there to make of it? We all know what a loop-the-loop is—a centrifugal railway.”
“But we also all know that the Joker is not that simple.” She frowned. “Could he be hinting that he’s transferring his activities to Second City?”
Wayne looked jolted. “Because of the Loop, the elevated railway ringin
g Second City’s business district?”
“Exactly.”
Wayne felt a sudden emptiness. If it were true that the Joker was leaving Gotham to take up in Second City, that would remove the Joker from Batman’s reach. Rather, for Batman would never falter in his grim pursuit of the Grin Reaper, it would force Batman far from his base of operations.
“Can’t you think of any other possibilities?”
Amicia smiled. “Sure. Off the top of my head, loop could refer to one of the identifying characteristics—loops, arches, and whorls—that a fingerprint expert looks for; loop could mean the platinum bent at one end into a loop that a bacteriologist uses to transfer microorganisms with; loop could stand for the aerial maneuver of a stunt pilot.” She shrugged. “Or it could be none of the above. With the Joker’s crazy sense of humor, it could be a play on loupe—l-o-u-p-e.”
Wayne narrowed his eyes. “The magnifying glass that a jeweler uses to examine gems?”
“Exactly.” She stared at him. “You don’t think—”
“I do. What more lucrative caper than a heist at the midtown Emerald Center? I’ll bet that’s next on his hit list.” He moved to the phone. “I’ll tell Commissioner Gordon my hunch and let him pass it along to Batman.
Amicia’s eyes shone. “You and Batman make a good team—the man of thought and the man of action.”
“Thanks.” Wayne smiled as he went to the phone, but it was a twisted smile. He sensed that Amicia’s eyes shone at the thought of the man of action. “I think I speak for Batman when I say you can consider yourself part of the team.”
With Amicia present, the direct-line phone was out of sight. He picked up the everyday phone and dialed.
The Joker peered from around the corner of the block. The coast looked clear. Rush-hour traffic was long gone. The fire truck idling behind him would have clear passage to the tall building housing the Emerald Center. He eyed the green neon sign over the entrance to the great conglomeration of offices and stores devoted to emeralds and other gems:
EMERALD CENTER