The Further Adventures of Batman

by Martin H. Greenberg

  Batman dreaded the thought of facing Alfred with the cape in the state it was.

  Wayne phoned Sollis. “Do you happen to know how many Wise Men of Gotham there were?”

  A pause, then Amicia said, “I could journey to England and look up Gotham in the Domesday Book, and in the Pipe Rolls that carried on the census, but I doubt I’d find a breakdown of the male population into wise and foolish.”

  A pause at Wayne’s end, then he said, “You’re taking me too literally. I’m talking about the Wise Men in the legends, not necessarily about men who lived and breathed.”

  “You’re right, Bruce. I ought to lighten up. Let’s see . . . Well, there is a nursery rhyme:

  ‘Three wise men of Gotham

  Went to sea in a bowl.

  If the bowl had been stronger,

  My story had been longer.’

  But it doesn’t say ‘The three wise men.’ So that leaves it open-ended.”

  “What I was afraid of,” Wayne said.

  Even though Bruce would have continued cause to consult her—which she didn’t mind at all—Dr. Sollis shared his fear.

  “You have to go out again, sir? I haven’t finished spotting the cape.” Alfred reluctantly fetched the Batman costume. He hesitated before handing it over. “If I may suggest, sir, mightn’t you wear Master Dick’s Robin costume while he’s in England on his Rhodes scholarship?”

  Wayne worked his shoulders. “It wouldn’t hang right.” He patted Alfred reassuringly. “Don’t fret, Alfred. Darkness covers a multitude of sins.”

  Alfred remained stiff. “I thought it was Charity, sir, that did the covering.”

  “We’re told to do good deeds in secret, aren’t we? That’s darkness.” Batman flung this and his cape over his shoulder and did not wait for Alfred’s comeback.

  They met at Fourth Avenue and Fourth Street at four A.M.

  “That was a near thing with Foster Cavendish,” Comissioner Gordon said.

  “That it was,” Batman said. He did not add that not Cavendish but Rubin had been the Riddler’s target. He said quickly, “The Riddler again?”

  Gordon nodded grimly. “He keeps bouncing right back.” He handed Batman a photocopy of a rhymed note.

  Fool’s cap for a crown,

  Would’st see the dunce drown

  An eel in a pond?

  Then come and be conned.

  —Yours cruelly, the Riddler

  Like a cold cold finger the word “cruelly” touched Batman’s spine to ice. The Riddler seemed bent on making up for the past near-misses. Batman did not let Gordon see the dismay he felt. He smiled, then faded to black before Gordon could tell the smile was frozen.

  Dr. Amicia Sollis had words for the words. “ ‘Foolscap’ is a size of writing paper large enough to twist-and-paste into a dunce cap. It gets its name from a watermark in the form of a jester’s cap with bells. ‘Drown an eel in a pond’ is of course the Gothamites’ playing at being fools. ‘Come and be conned’ invites Batman to be suckered by a con—or confidence—game. Then, too, there’s ‘conn’ with a double en, from cond for conduct; ‘to take the conn’ is to take over the steering of a vessel, to watch its course and direct the helmsman.”

  “Then Batman has only to find the fool, the eel, and the pond.”

  “You got it.” Amicia dug into the sole. “This is delicious.”

  But Wayne had lost his appetite. Glumly, without thinking, he sipped water.

  CLICK! A light bulb went on in his head.

  He held the glass to the light of the chandeliers. Water was the key.

  Could the Riddler’s “pond” be the yacht basin? Could the Riddler’s “eel” be the Île de Joie? Could the “fool” be Jack King?

  Batman would go and take the conn.

  Alfred looked flushed but defiant. “Master Dick is in his room unpacking.”

  Wayne shot Alfred a look and made for his protege’s room. Dick Grayson looked fit save for signs of jet lag.

  They thumped one another, then Wayne eyed Dick keenly. “I thought you planned to hike through the highlands on your Easter holiday. What gives?”

  Dick shrugged. “Alfred called me last night and said that you had let yourself go in your preoccupation with the Riddler. I figured you could use my help, so I Concorded right over.”

  “I’ll speak to Alfred later. But I must admit I feel surer and stronger now that you’re here. Let’s change, and I’ll fill you in on our way to the yacht basin.”

  Batman pedaled to the Batmobile’s metal. The sleek vehicle whizzed through Gotham’s canyons.

  SCREEEECHHH!!!

  Only their seat belts saved them.

  Robin turned to stare at Batman. “Why did you brake?”

  “It hit me. I am being conned by the Riddler. Jack King is not his target. In fact, Jack King is the mastermind behind the Riddler’s attempts on the Wise Men of Gotham.”

  He ticked off on black-gloved fingers. “First, the floating corpse with the tattooed Riddler rhyme had been an art student mixed up in something mysterious at the time he turned up missing. That mysterious something could well have been the copying of a particular painting—the $86 million Rembrandt. Second, that would explain Jack King’s curious composure when the Riddler vandalized The Would-Be Bride—Jack King was exhibiting not the original but a recently painted copy. Because, third, I noticed a faint smudge on Detective Sergeant Heather Mortimer’s forearm after she pulled the dart from the canvas. The paint had not yet dried hard! Four, the Riddler found it awfully easy to get on and off the Île de Joie. Five, the Wise Men the Riddler has been after have all stood in Jack King’s juggernaut path.”

  Batman made a fist. “It adds up.”

  Robin nodded. “Seems to. But now what?”

  Batman eased out of the Batmobile. “You cover the Ile de foie just in case the Riddler is pulling a double con.”

  Robin shifted to the driver’s seat. “While you—?”

  “Look for the right eel in the right pond.”

  “Good fishing!”

  Robin’s voice thinned away on the Batmobile’s exhaust.

  Batman moved to the sidewalk, looking for a newsstand—a bit late, now, to be scanning the paper for some hint as to where the Riddler might strike.

  Robin slowed as he neared the yacht basin. He spotted the Île de Joie and parked the Batmobile in a space preserved by fluorescent-orange traffic cones. It struck him that they looked like dunce caps.

  “Keep the change,” Batman said absently. He was already perusing the paper.

  “Gee, thanks Batman!” the blind newsstand operator said.

  Batman gave a start. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Who else wears a cape these days? I heard the swirl.”

  “Oh.” Batman moved away, reading as he walked.

  The paper was thicker than usual for a weekday. It had a special Boat Show section.

  Batman stopped in his tracks.

  “You all right, Batman?” the newsstand operator called.

  “Fine, fine.” Batman hurried away.

  He headed for Exposition Center, the venue of the Boat Show.

  It all fell into place. “Fool’s cap for a crown.” Foolscap was paper. Gotham City’s leading newspaper, the one in Batman’s hands, was the crown of Rudolph Newkirk’s media empire. Rudolph Newkirk stood in Jack King’s way, therefore representing a Wise Man for the Riddler to bump off. According to the special section, which must have brought the paper millions in advertising revenue, Rudolph Newkirk would be at the Boat Show this evening.

  Batman quickened his pace.

  Exposition Center had ways of ingress unknown to ticket buyers.

  Batman made entry into the labyrinthine basement of the complex, Others had done so before him. As he moved through the vaulted chambers he glimpsed shadowy forms in the dim recesses. Scores of the homeless had taken up residence here.

  He moved carefully and quietly to keep from disturbing them. Even so, some stirred and mu
ttered at his passage.

  “YOWW!” Skeletal hands with dirty claws waved threateningly in his face, red eyes glared into his, and foul breath assailed his nostrils. A ragged figure, thick with layers of clothes rather than with meat on its bones, had sprung out of an alcove at him. The raspy voice followed up on its shout. “Stay away! This is my place!”

  Batman gestured placatingly. “Right! It’s all yours!”

  He made to pass by, but the claws gripped his cape at the throat and held him fast and the red eyes bored into his. “You wear a mask, but I’ve seen those eyes. Where have I seen those eyes?”

  Batman tore free and shoved the man as gently as he could back into the precious alcove. “I don’t know, my friend. We’ll have to puzzle that out another time. Right now I’m on urgent business.” He hurried on toward stairs going up.

  He did not notice that the ragged figure followed him, fear and fascination in its bloodshot eyes.

  On the exhibition floor, a vast arena filled with boats of all sizes and decked with flags and bunting, Batman hid himself from the crowd behind a motorboat booth and studied a program sheet he had picked up. Rudolph Newkirk’s name jumped out at him. The publisher was scheduled to award best-of-show trophies at ten o’clock—a quarter of an hour from now. The handing out was to take place at the Caribbean display.

  The reverse of the program sheet had a map that showed the Caribbean display to be a detailed scale model of the Caribbean area—clay islands in a steel-framed pool of water. Batman stretched to see over the crowd and found the display where the map put it—at the other end of the hall.

  Batman consulted the program again. Just before Rudolph Newkirk’s big moment, an expert from Anguilla in the Leeward Islands would demonstrate spearfishing in the same display. Batman’s synapses sparked. Anguilla meant eel or snake. L-e-e was e-e-l backwards . . .

  Crews from the local channels were already setting up lights and television cameras, clearing space for the thick cables snaking across the floor.

  Nearby, on a bench for the weary of soles, a woman sat embroidering away with a long-eyed sharp needle and worsted yarn, as if waiting patiently for her man to get his fill of the exhibits.

  Batman only had eyes for the Anguillan spearfisher, a bronzed man wearing goggles and swimming trunks. Speargun in hand, he waded calf-deep into the pool, stirring up the live fish swimming there. He mounted the replica of his native island, and balanced on this tiny foothold. Now Batman saw Newkirk arrive with an entourage and stand in the wings. How easy it would be for the spearfisher (the Riddler in disguise?) to kill Newkirk as the one left the spotlight and the other entered it!

  Batman edged around to the Caribbean display. He stood next to the bench where the woman—who might have been Mme. Defarge knitting as the guillotine lopped heads—sat working needle and yarn through an embroidery hoop.

  A sprightly program chairwoman introduced the spearfisher as Captain Jacoby. In an accent of the Islands, Captain Jacoby described the technique, then speared some half-dozen wriggling blowfish in rapid order.

  To a smattering of applause, Captain Jacoby splashed out of the Caribbean Sea. Greater applause attended Newkirk’s introduction.

  One eye on the spearfisher, who stopped by the side of the pool to towel his legs, Batman watched Newkirk good-sportedly take off shoes and socks and roll up trouser bottoms before stepping into the pool.

  Newkirk lifted one foot into the pool and then the other. Batman tensed. Now the Riddler would make his move.

  Captain Jacoby straightened and turned to look at Newkirk. Batman set himself to leap at the spearfisher.

  But the move came from the woman knitting. She rose from the bench, dropped her crewel embroidery, and bent to pull the male plug of a floodlight from an extension cord snaking from the wall socket. She whipped the female end of the extension cord at the pool.

  Crewel . . . cruel . . . flashed through Batman’s mind. The Riddler!

  Everyone stood stunned as the length of cord, like some slick-backed electric eel, arced toward the water. Everyone but Batman.

  He lunged for the extension cord, grabbed hold, and pulled it from the wall socket just as the other end was about to hit the water with a terrible hissing and sparking. Newkirk stood frightened but unharmed.

  With a curse, the Riddler—with wig askew, his identity now clear—dove for the embroidery, grabbed the crewel needle, and thrust the sharp point straight at Batman’s heart.

  A ragged figure hurled itself between the needle and Batman.

  Batman let others give chase to the Riddler. He bent to the ragged figure that had taken the deathblow meant for Batman.

  He strained to hear the homeless man’s last gasps. The man stared into Batman’s eyes.

  “The eyes . . . the eyes of the kid . . . who watched me . . . knock off his folks . . . in the stickup . . .”

  It took a moment to sink in, then Batman felt a rush of rage. But the man’s eyes had closed. The man was past Batman’s hate, past everything except, perhaps, peace.

  Bruce Wayne held a sort of postmortem, a gathering of himself, Dick Grayson, Commissioner Gordon, and Dr. Amicia Sollis.

  Alfred had a riddle of claret at the proper temperature, and they were doing justice to at least the magnum.

  Batman’s string of victories over the Riddler had had swift and amazing consequences.

  Gordon looked darkly through his half-full glass. “Jack King overreached himself—with no golden handshake at the end. When the Wise Men of Gotham lived to frustrate his grandiose project, his whole house of cards collapsed. Even his Swiss and Caribbean assets were frozen, and the Île de Joie was attached for back taxes, together with all its treasures—including the real Rembrandt discovered rolled up in the wall safe.”

  Dick said, “I happened to be at the yacht basin at the time news of the attempt on Newkirk came over the radio. I happened to see Jack King leave the Île de Joie and zoom away in a speedboat. I’m surprised he didn’t take the Rembrandt with him.”

  “Had other things on his mind,” Wayne guessed.

  Amicia smiled wryly. “He didn’t think to take Queena with him. I hear Queena filed for divorce, asking huge alimony. Fat chance she’ll collect, with all his creditors—wolves, sharks, and vultures—seeking him by land, sea, and air, but at least she has all her jewels.”

  “A Wise Woman of Gotham?” Wayne asked. He looked at Amicia. “I know a wiser.”

  The Police Commissioner and the Avenger of Evil met one more time about the affair of the Wise Men of Gotham, just that Gordon might thank Batman—and update him on the hunt for the Riddler.

  “He’s escaped us again. We’ve looked high and low. First place, of course, was low—the basement of Exposition Center.” He shivered. “What a pesthole! It’ll take some doing to clear those creatures out of their nests and burrows and to squatter-proof the place.”

  Batman put a hand on Gordon’s arm. “Let them be. From what I hear, Jack King will be needing somewhere to lay his head.”

  Northwestward

  (BLACK WIDOWERS #61)

  Isaac Asimov

  Thomas Trumbull said to Emmanuel Rubin in a low voice, “Where the devil have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for a week,”

  Rubin’s eyes flashed behind the thick lenses of his spectacles, and his sparse beard bristled. “I was away at the Berkshires for a week. I was not aware I had to apply for permission to you for that.”

  “I wanted to speak to you.”

  “Then speak to me now. Here I am—that is, supposing you can think of something intelligent to say.”

  Trumbull looked about hastily. The Black Widowers had gathered for the monthly banquet at the Milano and Trumbull had managed to arrive on time because he was the host.

  He said, “Keep your voice down, for God’s sake, Manny. I can’t speak freely now. It’s about,” his voice dropped to a mere mouthing, “my guest.”

  “Well, what about him?” Rubin glanced in the direction
of the tall, distinguished-looking elderly man, who was conversing with Geoffrey Avalon in the far corner. The guest was a good two inches taller than Avalon, who was usually the tallest person at the gathering. Rubin, who was ten inches shorter than Avalon, grinned.

  “I think it does Jeff good to have to look up now and then,” he said.

  “Listen to me, will you?” said Trumbull. “I’ve talked to the others and you were the only one I was really worried about and the only one I couldn’t reach.”

  “But what are you worried about? Get to the point, will you?”

  “It’s my guest. He’s peculiar.”

  “If he’s your guest—”

  “Sh! He’s an interesting guy, and he’s not nuts, but you may consider him peculiar and I don’t want you to mock him. You just let him be peculiar and accept it.”

  “How is he peculiar?”

  “He has an idée fixe, if you know what that means.”

  Rubin looked revolted. “Can you tell me why it’s so necessary for an American with a stumbling knowledge of English to say idée fixe when the English phrase ‘fixed idea’ does just as well?”

  “He has a fixed idea, then. It will come out because he can’t keep it in. Please don’t make fun of it, or of him. Please accept him on his own terms.”

  “This violates the whole principle of the grilling, Tom.”

  “It just bends it a little. I’m asking you to be polite, that’s all. Everyone else has agreed.”

  Rubin’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll try, but, so help me, Tom, if this is some sort of gag—if I’m being set up for something—I’ll stand on a stool if I have to, and I’ll punch you right in the eye.”

  “There’s no gag involved.”

  Rubin wandered over to where Mario Gonzalo was putting the finishing touches on his caricature of the guest. Not much of a caricature at that. He was turning out a Gibson man, a collar ad.