Vicki just hoped it wasn’t too Sate for Bruce.
Bruce woke suddenly.
He had fallen asleep on the map of Gotham City. He had been staring at it, hoping somehow that the maze of streets and buildings would somehow open up to show him the Joker. He looked up. Thirty video monitors looked back at him, showing thirty empty rooms. There was the slightest of noises behind him. He quickly glanced back. Alfred was quietly folding the cape of his uniform.
That meant the butler must have brought what he asked for.
“The file on my parents?” Bruce managed.
Alfred solemnly nodded toward a manila folder on the corner of the desk. Even half asleep, Bruce noticed the butler was unusually quiet.
“What’s on your mind, Alfred?”
“I’m getting old, sir,” the butler replied. “And I don’t want to fill my days grieving for old friends. Or their sons.”
Bruce conceded that Alfred had a point. But it was far too late to change his course of action now. It had probably been far too late on the day his parents died. There was only one thing he could do—one real reason that the Batman had come into existence—and the Batman had to fulfill his destiny.
Bruce asked Alfred if he might have some coffee. He opened the file.
They had the press conference on the steps of Gotham City Hall. That in itself was significant. Yesterday, Commissioner Gordon knew, Mayor Borg would have led any press conference from the newly built reviewing stand across the street in Gotham Square. The mayor wanted that stand, and the celebration surrounding it, to begin a renewal of all that was good about their city.
But the Joker had changed all that. His murderous actions had instead turned the reviewing stand into a symbol for crime and anarchy—all the things that were wrong with Gotham. And, in a way, even though the Batman frightened him off, the Joker could claim a victory.
Tomorrow, the city would tear that podium down.
Borg cleared his throat and spoke into the dozen microphones on the stand before him.
“The two hundredth anniversary birthday gala has been indefinitely postponed.”
That’s all the mayor could bring himself to say. He stepped aside and let Harvey Dent—the new voice of Gotham City—take center stage. Commissioner Gordon never thought he would see the day when Mayor Borg could not talk forever about whatever glory or tragedy had affected Gotham. But this renewal of the city had been the mayor’s personal fantasy, something he could leave behind for posterity and the history books. Failure here pointed to the failure of his whole political career. For the first time since he had shared political office with Borg, Gordon realized, he actually felt sorry for the mayor.
Dent looked straight into the central television camera and began to speak.
“We’re vehemently opposed to terrorism in any form. But a toxin has been found in the coffee at the police stations. With two thirds of our police force disabled, we simply can’t guarantee public safety—”
Dent hesitated. Somebody had ran out of one of the mobile video trucks and was yelling at the cameramen. Gordon glanced over at the mayor. Borg started to whimper. The commissioner ran down the steps to see what the problem was. He joined a group of technicians clustered around a monitor.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“See for yourself,” a thin, balding fellow replied. “This monitor shows the feed going out to the local stations. But only one half of that picture is ours.”
Gordon looked at the monitor for himself. The screen was split down the middle, with the left half showing the scene at City Hall. The right half was blank, showing nothing but video snow. But then a picture formed in the snow, and solidified to show the figure of a man sitting in an armchair in a drawing room.
Gordon recognized the figure in the chair only when the picture came into focus. It was the Joker.
“Joker here.”
The Joker smiled convivially. Rather than a bizarre combination of dead white and flaming red, his face was a neutral flesh color. It almost made him look human.
“Now,” he continued, his tone slightly chiding, “you guys have said some pretty mean things. Some of which, I admit, were true under that fiend, Boss Grissom. He was a terrorist and a thief. But, on the other hand, he was great at bridge. Anyway, he’s dead, and he left me in charge.”
The Joker paused and leaned toward the camera. “Now, I can be theatrical, maybe even a little rough. But there’s one thing I’m not. I’m not a killer. I’m an artist.”
He leaned even closer, so that his grin filled the screen.
“And I looooove a party! So, trace, guys!” The camera retreated as he spread his arms wide. “Commence au Festival!”
His announcement was greeted by applause. Canned applause.
“I even got a little present for Gotham City!” the Joker continued, his voice rising with the excitement. “At midnight I drop twenty million dollars cash on the crowd!”
He waved his hands again, this time as a gesture of humility.
“I’ve got plenty,” he added, “so don’t worry about me.
The mayor had taken the microphone back on his side of the screen.
“We are not prepared to discuss any deals—” he began.
“You heard me, folks!” the Joker interrupted. “Twenty million dollars!”
The Joker stood, placing his thumbs behind the lapels of his double-breasted suit coat.
“And there will be entertainment!” he cheered. “The Big Fight! Me in one corner, and, in the other, the man who has brought the real terror to this city.” He paused dramatically, his eyes wide with feigned fright. “Batman!”
The left-hand side of the screen showed Borg and Dent glance at each other in surprise.
The Joker leaned into the screen.
“Can you hear me, Batman?” he asked in a stage whisper. “Just you and me. Mano a mano! I’ve taken off my makeup. Let’s see if you can take off yours!”
Bruce shut off the TV. He had seen enough. He went back to the police file—the one on his parents. The cover had a large blue stamp across it—“UNSOLVED.”
But it wasn’t, not anymore.
The first thing in the file was the newspaper article, and the picture of Bruce as a boy.
He remembered. There had been a radio playing somewhere. It was a hot summer night. A woman laughed, the sound drifting down from a second-story window. He was walking with his mother and father, down the streets of Gotham City. It was a special night. They had been to see a show, and Bruce had been allowed to stay up well past his bedtime. It was such a fine night, his father had decided they should walk for a bit before they got a cab.
He remembered the quick footsteps behind them. He remembered his mother’s hushed voice next to him.
“Tom, there’s someone following us!”
Somehow, the three of them had started running. But they stopped when they ran into the alley.
He remembered the two young hoods. One of them had a gun. He grabbed the string of pearls around his mother’s neck. His father tried to grab the young punk’s arm.
There was a gunshot.
He remembered his father falling. He remembered his mother screaming.
A second gunshot.
He could still see the fire from the muzzle of the gun, so bright in that dark alley. And he saw his mother fall. Dead.
Both his mother and father were dead.
He remembered.
The kid without the gun ran away. But the other one pointed his revolver right at Bruce.
“Tell me, kid,” the kid with the gun had started. He remembered that too.
The young punk stepped forward, so that Bruce could see him better in the moonlight. He smiled. Bruce remembered that smile. A Joker’s smile.
The punk spoke: “You ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?”
The young Jack Napier’s finger pressed lightly on the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“Come on!”
a voice yelled out of the darkness. It was the voice of the other punk, Bruce realized now.
“Let’s go!” the other voice insisted.
Jack Napier walked slowly from the alleyway, laughing all the time.
Bruce remembered the laughter.
Alfred let Vicki in.
Bruce was there, asleep in an overstuffed chair. He looked as though he was having a nightmare. His head tossed from side to side, face covered with sweat. He moaned softly, the noise coming from deep in his throat. Vicki wondered if she should try to wake him up. She took a step toward the chair.
His eyes snapped opened.
“It was him!” he said clearly.
Vicki walked quickly to his side.
“Are you all right?”
He blinked at her, disoriented, as if he wasn’t completely awake.
“Wh—how did you get in here?” he managed blurrily.
“Alfred,” Vicki replied. The butler nodded to her as he left the room. It had seemed so simple on the way over here. There were things that had to come out in the open now, for Bruce’s sake, and for both of them.
She had to say it now, or it would never come out.
“Am I crazy?” she began. Once she started, the words came pouring out. “That wasn’t just another ‘night’ for either of us. Was it? We got to each other. Didn’t we?”
Maybe she was going too fast. Was she making sense?
Bruce closed a folder that had been spread on the table before him. One word, “UNSOLVED,” was stamped in blue on the cover. He sat up in his chair and looked directly at her.
“You were going to tell me something at my apartment,” she asked, fumbling a bit under Bruce’s gaze, “when the Joker came. What was it?”
Bruce looked away. But she wouldn’t let him go. Not now, not after all this. Why wouldn’t he understand?
“Why won’t you let me in?” she asked.
He stood up then, in a quick, fluid movement, as if there was something inside him that his muscles could no longer contain. His eyes looked back into hers. Maybe, Vicki realized, he understood after all.
“You got in already,” he replied.
My God, Vicki thought. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? She had prepared all these answers for him, all these reasoned arguments for all the objections he could throw against her.
The only thing she wasn’t ready for was what he had just said.
“I don’t know what to think about all this,” she confessed.
“You said you got to a place where you just had to live with the way you were.” He waved his hands outward, from himself to the room around him. “Well, that’s this place.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant all of Wayne Manor, or what was going on inside his own head. In a way, she supposed, he could mean both.
Who would be the first person to talk about it, then? To live with the way you were. It was strange, Bruce being so open like this. She had to be open with him too—as open as she could be.
“I’ve loved you—every night—since I met you,” she said. “But I don’t know if I can love you dead.”
So she had talked about it in a way—Bruce’s other self. But she still hadn’t mentioned the name.
Batman.
Still, Bruce knew exactly what she meant. “I can’t help you out with that.” He took a step toward her, then stopped again. “I’ve been trying to avoid this. But that’s the way it is.” His mouth twisted up into the faintest hint of a smile. “I wear a cape. You take pictures. It’s not a perfect world.”
“It doesn’t have to be a perfect world,” Vicki replied quickly, realizing, in a way, that Batman was beside the point. “I’ve just got to know if we’re going to try to love each other.”
Bruce stood there and looked at her. Vicki realized that through this whole conversation they had still kept their distance. Why were they so afraid of touching?
Maybe it would make this all too real.
“He’s out there tonight,” was all Bruce would say to her. So, even now, he was thinking about the Joker. “Now I’ve got to go to work.”
He left her with a smile, retreating to the shadows at the far end of the study. She heard a door open and close.
She was alone.
What had happened here?
She thought about what Bruce had said—about this not being a perfect world.
She was a photographer. She kept life at a distance in a way. She controlled her surroundings by what she chose to see through her camera lens.
In a way, Bruce did the same thing. He took on a new identity to control his surroundings, except that his surroundings were a lot more violent, because, perhaps, of what had happened to him so long ago.
She wasn’t worried about Bruce anymore. Oh, she was still afraid for his physical safety, especially with someone as crazy as the Joker. But she understood why he had to be the Batman. And she hoped he could accomplish everything he set out to do.
She took a sip from her neglected drink.
Just come back to me, Bruce. Now that they had found each other, two crazy people in a crazy world, maybe they could make the world work for them.
And maybe they could even learn to live together in a world that was all too real.
The Joker was Jack Napier.
Batman could no longer remember the moment he made that realization. He had been poring over the maps and police files, or he had had a dream. He had been in the Batcave, or dozing in his study. He had been only half awake for the longest time, really. Now, that he had the answer, everything fell into place. He no longer needed to sleep. All his fatigue was gone, his weaknesses forgotten.
It was nighttime. Bats went out at night.
He put on his gloves, his boots, his cape and cowl. Then his belt, a brilliant yellow oval surrounding the emblem of a bat.
The Joker had challenged him.
Tonight he would meet that challenge.
He climbed into his car and headed for the Axis Chemical Company.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He was patient.
An unmarked panel truck drove to the gates of the Axis Chemical Company.
He was about to be rewarded.
The gates opened. The truck passed through.
He turned on the headlights and stamped on the accelerator.
The Batmobile roared from the darkness.
The hood in the guard’s uniform tried to close the gate again. But the Batmobile smashed its way through the steel bars before they could lock as the hood jumped out of the way.
“It’s Batman!” the guard screamed.
It was nice to be recognized.
The guard took out his pistol and shot at the car. The bullets bounced off the Batmobile’s steel frame.
He had stopped in front of a pair of large steel doors—the main entrance to Axis Chemical.
He opened the Batmobile’s flaps, then pressed a second button to position the heavy duty machine guns. Time for the third button—the red one.
The guns fired, demolishing the steel doors.
He saw the guard from the gate run away.
He flicked another switch, and the guns retracted into the body of the car. He drove the Batmobile through the new opening, into the Axis Chemical Company.
He saw a dozen or more punks running for cover. They opened fire on the Batmobile with machine guns. There were too many bullets. There were already cracks forming in the bulletproof glass of the windshield. If enough bullets hit the glass, it would shatter.
He put up the shields.
The punks kept firing. He’d let them. Their bullets couldn’t do any more damage now.
He flipped another switch on his control panel.
The robot arms extended themselves from the hubcaps, each arm holding a sufficient quantity of plastic explosive. He instructed the arms to stretch to their limits and to deposit their loads in a circle around the Batmobile.
He flipped the red toggle switch. A red number flashed on the digital
display: 15.
Then: 14—13—12—11—10—9—8—7—6—5—
He stopped breathing.
The monitor display changed to a single word: DETONATE.
The building detonated—a ball of fire rising into the night sky.
He waited a moment for the debris to settle, then drove the Batmobile out of the rubble and back to the gate.
He walked out of the darkness and patted the Batmobile on the fender. There were a couple of nicks on the windshield. Besides that, he couldn’t see a scratch. He put the remote control into its compartment on his utility belt. The Batmobile purred beside him.
There was a loud, chugging sound as a helicopter rose from behind one of the Axis Chemical buildings not demolished by the blast. A dozen searchlights came on, all pointed at the Batman. He jumped around the Batmobile, behind the steel gate, as he was surrounded by machine-gun fire.
The chopper roared overhead.
“Not even close!” the Joker’s voice screamed from a loudspeaker above. “No cigar, fool!”
His chuckle echoed through the machine-gun fire. “I’m going to the festival. You really ought to show up. I’m gonna kill a thousand people an hour until you do!”
The Joker started laughing again as the chopper banked away from the Axis Chemical Company and headed for the searchlights of the Gotham City Festival.
Laughter.
Have you ever danced?
Laughter Batman had heard before.
Have you ever danced with the devil?
Laughter he had heard in his dreams.
Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?
Laughter he swore he would never hear again.
Such a peaceful night in a Gotham City warehouse. The night watchman—the only night watchman in the whole, peaceful warehouse—sat reading one of those lurid tabloid newspapers. PYGMY FLYING SAUCERS LAND IN RUSSIA! GHOST OF ELVIS LOSES 60 POUNDS ON MIRACLE DIET! Didn’t he know stuff like that didn’t happen in real life?
Uh-uh. Real life was much more fantastic.
One of the boys knocked the peaceful night watchman on the back of the head, making sure he’d be peaceful for hours to come. The Joker ordered the rest of the gang to follow.
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