Pennyworth patted her hand and watched the shadows. He didn’t expect another incident—one was quite enough for the evening. Then he glanced down at his cuff, and decided there was no such thing as being too careful.
Still, he knew that even among the lowest of the low here in Crime Alley, the word was you didn’t mess with Dr. Thompkins or the staff of her clinic. The place was considered off limits—they serviced whoever came through the door, no matter angel or devil. So that even those who would readily steal their mother’s wedding ring to pawn for a fix had at least one damn thing they could cherish.
As Pennyworth was well aware, Gotham was too often bereft in the upstanding department.
* * *
Sparks spewed from the motorcycle as it skidded into the gutter. Using her newly acquired grapnel gun, Batgirl latched onto a truck with the logo of Tri-State Freight on the side. She swung up and onto its boxy cargo area and went flat as one of the goons in the car behind them took another shot at her.
This replaced one dilemma with another. Since they were on one of the city’s wider thoroughfares, she’d ditched the motorcycle to avoid having any innocent motorists caught in the crossfire. Now she would need to stay toward the back of the truck, lest a stray bullet strike the driver. At least the cargo unit afforded her some protection.
Her target, an AMX muscle car with a built-in hood scoop and a throaty big barrel V8 under the hood, sped to go around the truck and leave her in the dust. Running along the top of the bobtail, she launched herself into space and landed on the car’s roof, gripping the front edge and securing a line—along with a surprise package.
As she knew would happen, they shot through the roof trying to tag her, but she rolled off and let herself fall onto the trunk. The line held and she was up like a jet skier daunting a wild wave. A thug twisted around and leveled his pistol to shoot at her through the windshield, when the present she’d left on the roof ignited. It was a magnetized device that pierced the top of the vehicle and shot smoke inside. Instantly the occupants of the car were engulfed, but the gunman managed to get off a shot, shattering the back window.
Even as the glass exploded outward, much of the choking cloud remained inside the vehicle.
“Watch it!” one of the occupants shouted.
“Can’t see for shit,” the driver bellowed as the car skidded, tore across the lanes, then vaulted over a concrete-and-grass divider.
In this area of town there were bars and restaurants catering to the college and young adult crowd. People stood in doorways or bunched behind plate glass windows, enthralled by the excitement. An elevated subway train rumbled overhead. It was just a matter of time before someone got hurt.
* * *
Seeking a line on Giggle Sniff, Batgirl had taken her cue from Batman and made the rounds of her own network of informants. The tip had come from a campus contact, a part-time instructor who Barbara Gordon knew from her job at the library. This man had gone out a few times with one of her coworkers, Cassie Lane. She knew too he smoked pot, so that put him in tune with some of the drug crowd.
From him she’d learned about a trio of thugs who’d been hitting the campuses, looking to recruit customers and pushers. He’d described the three men and the flashy car they drove. Sure enough, after some time on solo patrol, she had spotted them.
* * *
As the car careened out of control, she timed her move just right, jumped free, somersaulted in the air, then rebounded off another car top. The dizzying series of moves landed her on top of a mailbox. The AMX slammed into an iron girder, part of the metal and concrete holding up the elevated tracks for the crosstown subway. The top of the driver’s head hit the windshield, leaving a spider’s web of cracks, and he was out.
His two companions were still mobile.
The one in the front passenger seat was out and running, limping a little but looking to put as much distance between them as he could. For good measure, he shot over his shoulder without looking back.
The one in the rear seat was trying to extricate himself, but the crash had driven the driver’s bucket seat back off its rails. He was pinned, and had to use both hands to shove the broken seat off his legs. Finally he pulled himself loose and fell out of the car, clambering to his feet. The entire time he glanced around, frantic that his pursuer might be close.
“Boo.”
He spun around, waving a gun this way and that. She jumped on him from above. Three quick chops to his neck had him dazed, and a left to his face had him bloodied and reeling. One more punch put him out.
Not far away there was a gunshot, and she took off at a sprint. Her quarry was running along beneath the train tracks, shooting at phantoms. He approached a stairway just as a wave of commuters descended from the platform. With a toss of her line and grapnel Batgirl was airborne, swinging over his head and dropping down in front of him.
Instantly she cursed herself for being over-confident. The thug grabbed a woman and pressed his gun to her temple.
“One more step, and her head disappears in a red haze.”
“All right, just be cool,” Batgirl said, hands forward so he could see they were empty.
“Now you’re gonna let me walk, and me and this chick here are gonna find someplace else to be.”
“Who’re you callin’ a chick?” the woman said as she drove her heel into the man’s foot, pushing the gun upward and away.
The guy bellowed and she elbowed him to open space between them. Batgirl threw a dart retrieved from her utility belt, embedding it in his chest. He jerked violently as the gizmo sent an electric charge through him. She covered the distance between them in a bound and grabbed his wrist, twisting the gun loose and clubbing him with it.
He sank to the pavement groaning.
“Way to go, Batgirl,” one of the commuters enthused.
“You showed him,” another said.
Forearm at a ninety-degree angle to her waist, she bowed slightly. Using a zip tie to secure the thug, she was off, eager to reach her motorcycle before it could be impounded.
Sirens got closer in the distance.
As she neared the wrecked car, Batgirl paused. The trunk was loose, and she kicked the ruined lock with the heel of her boot. The lid sprang open, and she found the mat normally used to cover the spare tire. Lifting it she spied numerous packets of Giggle Sniff, loaded into a cut-down cardboard box.
Well, well…
She smirked. One of the geniuses must have figured it would be clever to offer the drug at a frat party or some such, using the cardboard like it was a serving tray. Turning the cardboard over, she noted the stylized double Ns in a circle. As she hurried to retrieve her motorcycle, she wondered if maybe those clowns had just found that box they cut down in the trash. Yet the Novick Novelty company had been closed for some time. What other trash would that have been in?
11
“It wasn’t a real baby.”
Dr. Joan Leland crossed her legs and leaned in closer to her patient, notepad balanced on her knee.
This was an extremely interesting case. His name was Kurt Lenk, average in every way except for his IQ—which was low, but not abnormally so. Pale, thinning hair beating a swift retreat from his large, freckled forehead. Small, dark eyes darting around in constant motion. Sharp nose and chin in a long, horsey face.
He’d worked for a local slumlord as a general handyman, dealing with minor maintenance issues in several tenements on the south side of town. Lived rent-free in a one-room basement apartment that had been provided by his boss. No family, no romantic connections, aside from the occasional professional. No prior record. Nothing to set him apart from the rest of humanity.
Until the day the Collins baby disappeared.
Dr. Leland had been patiently working her gentle, safecracker’s touch on the combination lock of Lenk’s mind for nearly five years. For the first three he’d refused to speak at all, to her or anyone else. Then came monosyllables. Then slowly, cautiously, he began to o
pen up. They had discussed his poor and lonely childhood and his well-meaning but emotionally unavailable single mother. His profound anxiety at dealing with his own emotions, which he preferred to subjugate or deny. His obsessive junk collecting and peculiar habit of anthropomorphizing inanimate objects, often endowing them with the emotions he himself could not express. Up until that point, however, any attempt to discuss the Collins baby evoked an immediate retreat into his safe stony silence.
“If it wasn’t a real baby,” Dr. Leland said, keeping her voice even, and non-threatening, “then what was it, Kurt?”
His whole body was tense, and he was vibrating like a plucked guitar string. He balled his fists in his lap, staring down at them.
“It was…” he began.
The door to Leland’s office swung wide open and the Joker sauntered in, plopping himself down on the couch beside Lenk and slinging a chummy arm around his hunched shoulders.
“Boy, did that hit the spot,” he said. “I feel like a new man. You know what I’m talkin’ about, don’t you Kurt?”
Damn him!
Leland pulled in a long slow breath through her nose, fighting to blunt the edges of her fury, and remain calm and professional. It was impossible to guess how much this would set Lenk’s progress back. But she didn’t want her other, more gregarious patient to feel as if he’d scored points by making her blow her cool.
Instead of addressing the intruder, she turned to face the door.
“Ms. Quinzel,” she called. Her young intern appeared in the doorway, looking sheepish. Her hair was down, she was sweaty and disheveled, and the buttons on her white coat didn’t line up.
“Yes, Dr. Leland?”
“Why is this Class A patient in the therapy wing, unaccompanied by his legally required security escort?”
The Joker tipped his chin toward the girl in the doorway, waggling his eyebrows and pulling Lenk close.
“Too old for you, huh?” he whispered loudly. “Sure, I know how it is, but beggars can’t be choosers, am I right?”
Dr. Leland got to her feet and pushed a button on her desk.
“I’m so sorry, Kurt,” she said, taking Lenk by the wrist and helping him to his feet, bodily inserting herself between him and the Joker. “We’ll have to continue this discussion next week. Would that be okay?”
Lenk remained silent, eyes to the floor and his body shaking all over as two muscular orderlies arrived in her office. One of them gripped Lenk’s upper arm while the other cocked a thumb at the Joker.
“Want us to take this one, too?”
“No, leave him,” Leland said, pinning the Joker with a withering stare. “And Ms. Quinzel?”
“Yes, doctor?”
“Report back to my office at the end of your shift,” Leland said. “This is your second strike. One more incident like this, and you’ll be transferred to the geriatric dementia ward.”
The young intern pouted, abandoning any pretense of contrition. She flounced away in an elaborate show of sulky drama. Leland frowned after her. Although the girl seemed to have a genuine rapport with some of their most troubled patients, she was turning out to be far more trouble than she was worth.
“That would be a terrible shame, Dr. Leland,” the Joker said in that irritating voice of his. “I assure you that Ms. Quinzel’s unique skills would be utterly wasted on the senior set.”
Leland refused to rise to the Joker’s bait. She’d been working at Arkham Asylum since before Lenk even knew where babies came from. She’d heard it all and much, much worse. She picked up her notepad and sat back down in her seat at the head of the couch.
“Is that what you’d like to discuss in our session today?” she asked. “Sex? Why don’t we start with your compulsive need for conquest as a cover for deep-seated feelings of insecurity relating to your physical appearance?”
“Come on now, Doctor,” the Joker said. “Appearance is only skin deep. You know as well as I do that what women really want is a man who can make them…” He leaned in, a merry glint in his eye. “…laugh.”
“I see,” Dr. Leland said, taking notes. “So that’s the real source of your insecurity. It’s not about sex at all, is it? It’s the fear that you’ll bomb. That no one will laugh at your jokes. Why don’t we talk about that?”
The Joker’s smile wilted at the edges. His gaze hardened.
“That’s not funny,” he said. “Or true.”
“It’s not?” Dr. Leland replied. “My mistake. Why don’t you set the record straight?”
“You want to know the truth?” He smiled that Joker smile, cocking his head.
* * *
“You stink.”
Someone booed. Another patron hissed.
“Go back to your day job, you ain’t funny.”
Standing in the wings, the portly owner of the Laughing Fool made a cutting gesture across his throat. The stub of a cheap cigar dangled from a corner of his mouth. It was unlit. Every night it was unlit.
The long-faced would-be comedian looked from the owner back out at the sparse but nonetheless cruel assortment of customers. Most were drunk or high, and it seemed to the man on stage—in his dark suit and bowtie—that the only reason they stayed for the last showcase was to torment the performers. As he turned to walk off stage, someone in the gloom started to clap.
For just a moment, he hesitated.
“Good riddance, you sorry joker,” the man in back shouted. He guffawed as he slapped his hands. Slowly. Cruelly. “I want a free drink for having to put up with you. The whole house wants a free drink. Haw, haw.”
The owner, Gaynor, gave the defeated comic a reassuring pat on the shoulder. He wore a lavender suit and matching tie, which should have looked ridiculous, but somehow on his fat man’s frame he carried it off. It made him look like a circus pitchman dressed for a night on the town.
Walking onto the stage, Gaynor raised his arms and spoke. “As always I want to thank you all for coming out, and remember to tip your servers.” A canned rim shot sounded. Off to one side the sole waitress in the place gave a little bow. She had dark circles under her eyes and her earrings twinkled, despite the low lighting. The owner left the stage and the curtain closed.
He found the long-faced comedian in the threadbare dressing room, leaning on the back of a chair as he stared into the makeup mirror ringed with round light bulbs. Several had burnt out.
“Look, you got some chuckles out there,” Gaynor said to the long-faced man. “Comedy is tough, especially for a guy who’s just starting out. But it’s like riding a horse—you get thrown off, you gotta get back on.” He clasped the taller man on the shoulder again.
“You’d have me back?” the man said without turning. He seemed to be examining his future in the reflection. The club owner pulled the cigar stub out of his mouth, holding it in his pudgy fingers and waving it about.
“Lemme… lemme think about how that’ll work,” he replied. “But hell, you soldiered on in the face of a hostile crowd, and that’s half the battle. I’ll give ya a call… maybe.” He stuck the stub back in place and handed over two limp twenties.
The comedian looked at him, confused.
“Sorry, but that’s all we cleared,” Gaynor said. “It was a lean night.”
Long Face straightened, picking up his hat. Thanks to the dark suit, his lanky frame was indistinct in the gloomy space. He looked like a shadowy specter, looming above the earthbound club owner. For a moment the fat man wondered if there was going to be trouble.
“I’m not proud. I’ll take what I can get.”
“S-sure, kid.” The voice that had come from the figure had unsettled him, so different than the guy’s usual upbeat tone. “Look, ah, have a drink on me before you go. Okay?”
The tall man moved to the doorway, and spoke without glancing back.
“I don’t drink. It dulls the mind.”
* * *
Stepping out onto the street, he put on the shapeless fedora with a jaunty feather sticking out
of the band. The night was chilly, and a light rain had begun to fall, but it wasn’t that long of a walk and anyway, he didn’t want to waste money on a cab.
It was an old part of town. Nearing his place, he passed a working girl stationed in the alcove of a doorway that provided shelter from the rain. She was dressed in a micro-mini skirt, sheer top, no bra, fake lamb’s wool collar waistcoat, and thigh-high boots. She might have been twenty or forty.
“Want a date?” she said, giving him the up and down while smacking her gum. Plastered on one side of the alcove was a handbill announcing a new show at the Bonus Brothers Amusement Park.
He couldn’t even work up a weary smile for a response. On he went, past bars where people were laughing, drinking, and lining up action for the night. He reached his apartment building and stood outside, as if somehow held fast to the sidewalk.
What a dump, he lamented yet again. What kind of provider was he? One of the building’s many cats padded near him on the iron railing that bordered the concrete steps. It looked at him with baleful eyes.
“I’m not crazy about you either,” he said.
The cat jumped down and moved on. A sash cracked open slightly in the corner window above him, and he heard a radio playing. It was always playing, he thought. Mr. Ramirez, a widower, lived in there. He stayed up long into the night, and again early in the morning, sitting in his kitchenette listening to whatever it was insomniacs listened to in those lonely hours.
Just now it was a news bulletin.
“…the mysterious masked vigilante, known to many as the Bat Man, has been busy again. Earlier tonight he prevented an armed robbery in the fashion district. Witnesses said…”
The door closed behind him as he entered, pausing in the vestibule. There was a shuffle of feet behind a door to his left, and he was certain the landlady, Mrs. Burkiss, had heard him come in and watched him through her peep hole. With her long, tangled hair tied in ribbons, her hook nose, and her flowery house dress, she too was a late nighter. From her ground-floor apartment she could see who came and went. She watched them all on the sly.
Climbing the two stories to his apartment, he stopped at the top of the stairs and took a deep breath, forcing himself not to slump. He unlocked the door and went in. Their sparsely furnished place was warm thanks to a space heater next to the small kitchenette table, and hand-washed laundry hung from a line strung next to the window. Through the window he could see the brick wall of the adjoining building, close and claustrophobic. Water dripped from the roof above.
DC Comics novels--Batman Page 8