DC Comics novels--Batman

by Christa Faust

  Not the sort who wore a skimpy bikini and held up a beer bottle. She’d been a henchwoman among a plethora of henchmen. The Calendar Man had come up with the bright idea to recruit females for his gang, as he tried to differentiate himself from the other low-level villains. Julian Day also came to believe that the women on his payroll dug him, and he couldn’t keep his creepy hands off of them.

  One by one they departed.

  Despite years of hard living and hard drugging, Montclair’s body was toned and athletic. She’d begun working out when she was a member of Day’s crew, and she’d kept it up ever since. Her face, though, was a lined testament to the things she’d endured after running away from an abusive foster home at age fourteen.

  Bullock admired her dedication. He still did dumbbell curls on occasion, so there was some muscle tone in his arms and chest. His beer gut, however, sagged over the edge of his elastic waistband.

  “You clear-headed enough to go over this again?” he said, “or does the allure of that shit have you in a rapture state?”

  Without a word she rose and, in the tiny adjoining bathroom, theatrically upended her compact, watching doe-eyed as the green powder fell like alien snow into the toilet bowl. She flushed the commode and came back to sit in the chair. There was still some powder on the table, but she’d made her point.

  “Sharper than a skeeter’s peter, Harv,” she said. “Lay it out, baby.”

  Shifting his gaze from the TV screen back to Montclair, Bullock scratched at his tangle of salt-and-pepper whiskers again.

  “The main thing is what your girl Suzi told us,” he replied. “That she knows for certain Python Palmares has his operation set up in the old Novick Novelties factory.”

  “She’s sure of it.” Montclair nodded firmly. “She went through there about a month ago. Palmares brought up a buncha girls for a big party he was throwing. Booze, drugs, chicks flashing their ta-tas, the whole shebang. It was on the top floor, in his office outfitted to be all swank.”

  “You sure she wasn’t so high that she got it all twisted around in her head?”

  “No, Harvey, she wasn’t,” Montclair replied. “Palmares was puttin’ on the dog to impress this Intergang guy, Mannheim. You know, lookin’ to get more financing to expand up and down the eastern seaboard. His crew met Suzi and the girls on the ground floor by the stairs, ’cause the elevator wasn’t working. When they passed the floor below Python’s office, it was all closed off and there were guards in chairs, stationed in front of some metal doors. She said she could hear fans going, only she was cool, and didn’t let on she knew anything.”

  Montclair and her friend Susan Klosmeyer, two girls from the hard-bitten Narrows who’d met in the foster care system when girls—had been high on Giggle Sniff when Suzi had gossiped about Palmares and his base of operations. Klosmeyer was really high back then, and that was the night Montclair knew she had to clean up her own act.

  Susan had gone on about how Palmares liked to throw his money around, and was using Giggle Sniff as a stepping stone to bigger things. He’d talked about taking over all the rackets in Gotham.

  Bullock nodded. The fans were used to disperse the smell of the chemicals, so as not to call attention to what was supposed to be an empty factory.

  “Okay, good,” he said, moving his holster to the table and sitting down.

  “Are you sure you can pull this off, Harvey?” she asked, glancing over at the remaining emerald-colored powder, licking her bottom lip.

  “I’m taking a page from that bat-eared freak’s playbook.” Bullock chuckled mirthlessly. “First I dug up the blueprint of the factory, from the building department. Then I figured out how to cause the distraction I’ll need to take him down.”

  Montclair stood up again, bending over the table slightly and using the edge of her hand to sweep the Giggle Sniff onto a paper napkin. She balled the paper up and wiped the residue off her hands, sending it falling onto the beige shag carpet. He pictured a cockroach sucking up the drug and getting his mind blown, skittering all over the place.

  “But won’t he be keeping his money in a safe or something?” she asked, moving to the bathroom.

  “Yes, he probably does, sugar tits,” he replied, “but I’m going to make him move that money, and that’s when the snatch will happen.”

  “Yeah?” she said brightly. She went into the bathroom again and flushed the balled-up napkin. When she returned she sat on the couch and sank into its listless cushions.

  “Oh yeah,” he responded.

  She smiled crookedly. “Aren’t you the smart one?”

  He let his gaze linger again on that wonderful cleavage. “Don’t smart boys deserve, you know, a reward?”

  “I’m flattered, but I’m not that high, big boy.” She grinned, a greenish tinge to her gums. “Let’s keep this strictly business.”

  Bullock sighed and took another pull on his flask, watching the baseball game. The Knights were ahead by a run.

  18

  At the one-time Meskin Oil and Gas headquarters, the three former henchmen took out crowbars, battery-powered drills, and two sledge hammers as they set about searching.

  Up here in what had been the Accounts Payable department, taking up a large portion of the eighth floor, there were still intact walls and surprisingly a few desks, chairs, and file cabinets. As this was an old building the walls were plaster and lath, not sheetrock. Sweat and muscle was required to destroy the walls to see if there was something underneath. Broken plaster crunched under their boots, raising a floor-level cloud of white dust that swirled in the intense beams of the halogen flashlights.

  “Shit,” the man with the missing lobe said, breathing deeply and clutching a heavy sledge hammer in his hands. “There’s gotta be a better way to do this.”

  “Money don’t breathe,” the guy with the gray mustache responded. “We can’t exactly put our ear to the wall and listen for it.”

  “Breathing’s about the only thing it doesn’t do,” the third said. He was sitting on an abandoned swivel chair, and spun it around once. It squealed and wobbled, threatening to collapse under his excess weight. He bounced out onto his feet and picked up the second sledge hammer. “I’m’a show you rookies how it’s done.”

  “Maybe you can show them later.” The guttural voice came out of the shadows that lay beyond the beams. “When you get back from Blackgate.”

  They gaped at the dark figure, near invisible in the darkness.

  “Aw, hell,” Gray Mustache said.

  “You got nothing on us, man,” the guy with the missing lobe said, his voice rising. “We ain’t broke no laws, so you can just fly off or whatever it is you do, and go roust Black Mask or somebody like that.”

  “Black Mask isn’t looking to buy into the Giggle Sniff trade.”

  “What are you, a mind reader?”

  “Shut up,” the third goon hissed.

  “Men like you aren’t important to me,” Batman said, shifting his weight to one side. “I want a line on Palmares and his factory. Talk.”

  “I’ve heard what happens to guys that talk to you, freak,” Missing Lobe said, tensing. Then he swung the sledge hammer sideways at the man in the black cape. Only his target was no longer there. The ten-pound head of the hammer swished empty air and threw him off balance. Before he could recover, something sunk into his shoulder.

  It was shaped like a bat.

  He bellowed, his arm spasming so that he had to let go of the hammer. The tool’s clattering across the floor echoed in the near-empty space.

  Gray Mustache snatched up a crowbar and came at Batman, desperation giving him a quickness he hadn’t had as a younger man. He struck the Dark Knight on his arm, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. Batman rolled with the blow, and a side sweep of his foot collided with his assailant’s head.

  He went down hard.

  The former Calendar Man henchman knew when they were licked. He looked to get in the wind because he could see that Missing Lobe was
n’t done yet. Plucking the Batarang out of his shoulder, the man was bleeding profusely but he was still standing. Hopefully he’d keep Batman busy just long enough.

  “You ain’t taking this payday away from us, Batman,” Missing Lobe growled. Using his good hand he picked up the crowbar, coming at Batman again. He swung it underhand like a baseball player, trying to crack the Bat’s rib cage—but in a blur his wrist was grabbed and snapped even before his brain could fully process what was happening.

  “Fuck!” he spat. “You lousy, sanctimonious pointy-eared bastard.” He pulled back with his other fist, drenched in blood, then stopped. He didn’t want both wrists broken.

  “Where is the lab?” Batman said.

  “How the hell would I know?” The sonofabitch didn’t even have the courtesy to be out of breath.

  Batman leaned in, looming like a sentry sent from hell.

  “The lab,” he repeated.

  “Calendar Man,” he blurted. “The Calendar Man’s man.” He felt as if he was going to throw up. “Ask him. He said he had a connection.” He cringed under the Bat’s stare and looked away, waiting for the next blow. “You heard me?” he said after a pause.

  No answer.

  He looked up.

  Batman was gone.

  “He must be feeling magnanimous tonight,” he mumbled.

  * * *

  Down below, the third man scurried down the stairs, keeping silent as best he could. Darting through the side door he reached the van, and then realized he didn’t have the keys.

  The problem was too much fast food and cheap booze. Add a bum knee to the mix, and his running was little better than a brisk walk. He glanced over his shoulder, then all around into the shadows. Nothing there, but he knew better. As he turned a corner, there was a barely audible swish in the air.

  “Oh shit.”

  Suddenly his lower legs were entangled in a thin cable. He went airborne, upside down, and his head slammed against a wall, the side of his face colliding with rough bricks. Lights exploded behind his eyes and he screwed them shut as he fought to stay conscious. After a moment he opened them again.

  He was hanging upside down from a fire escape.

  Batman stood before him.

  “Where is the lab?”

  “I don’t know, man,” he gasped. His mouth was impossibly dry, and he had to work saliva around with his tongue. “I’ve never been there. Just heard about it through one of his people.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, man,” he repeated.

  “The name.”

  “See, well, that’s just it,” he said, bile working its way down his throat. “I met him once, kind of on accident, but I figured I could hunt him down again once we had the bankroll. He, uh, he didn’t give me a name.”

  The Bat glared at him.

  “Jo-Jo, okay?” He swallowed. “That’s his name, the name he goes by anyway.”

  “Jo-Jo Gagan?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “He’s low level,” the Bat said. “Not a high roller.”

  “No, no, he’s supposed to be up there in the food chain,” he replied. “Dealing big time for the Python. Really! He’s the guy you want.”

  Again the masked vigilante went quiet, his eye slits pulled into tight lines.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Yeah, I’m telling you straight. Gagan is the man.”

  Batman turned and began walking away. Relief flooded over the thug, then he remembered…

  “Hey, what about me?” he called, his voice cracking. “You just going to leave me like this?” He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a chuckle whisper out of the gloom.

  19

  The six-four Carl Grissom walked out from underneath the sign.

  BONUS BROTHERS CARNIVAL AND AMUSEMENT PARK

  His footfalls were silent on the hard-packed dirt. Some of the sign’s hand-painted letters were faded. It tilted precariously in place, and the pockmarked surface showed that it had been used for target practice.

  Grissom had acquired the dilapidated property from the two so-called “Bonus Brothers” when they were deep into him for their markers. Irv and Stan Bonassa came from the circus world and, when they were younger, had been very hands-on with the amusement park, performing as ringmasters, barkers, chief cooks and bottle washers. They had owned the land, and back in the day people would come from Metropolis, Star City, and beyond to see the two-headed baby, the bearded woman, the half man-half alligator, and other assorted freakish attractions.

  But times and tastes changed.

  There were still those who came—teenagers who’d heard about the place from their folks, and groups like the Shriners who might book the place for a special night—but the Bonassas’ vices got out of hand. Irv liked the cards and he’d hit a streak now and then, winning big. This led to over-confidence and the chance to lose it all chasing an inside straight or full house that never materialized.

  For Stan, the lonely widower, it was about the women.

  Past the Ferris Wheel, dark and skeletal on the cold rainy night, and the House of Fun with its creepy clown mouth for an entrance, he stopped at the carousel, one hand in his pocket. Grissom smiled ruefully, looking at the hand-carved horses, elephants, and carriages, brightly painted not that long ago.

  A product of the East End with a half-crazy alcoholic mom for a parent, he’d grown up hard. Because he was naturally good with his fists and had a quick wit, he thrived while others from the old neighborhood ended up in the graveyard or doing a bid in Blackgate. He’d been one of the top enforcers for the Galante family and, unlike the other knuckleheads he’d rolled with, he didn’t blow his money on booze and broads—well not all of it, anyway.

  His chance came when he dated a chick who stripped at a club called the Lacy Pony.

  The dude who owned the joint had his nose too much in the Colombian marching powder he dealt on the side. He was behind on the mortgage and Grissom had lent him the money with the appropriate vig attached. Needless to say, the man’s business habits hadn’t improved, and one day the prospect of another beating from his lender loomed large. He signed the club over to the muscle-turned-entrepreneur, and Carl Grissom became a business owner.

  That didn’t mean that Grissom had cut the strings from Junior Galante. The crime boss gave him the green light to branch out. In that way Galante was able to launder money and have the girls in the club push drugs on their customers, back in the private VIP rooms.

  Grissom got his cut of the action. He figured Galante would one day force him out, but when the day came he’d socked his money away. He then took on the mantle of loan shark, and did the occasional hit, if the price was right.

  Stan Bonassa frequented the Lacy Pony, and Grissom got to know him. Stan had a real bad infatuation for one of the broads who worked there, went by the name of Suzi Mustang. Grissom did some checking, and found out about the brother and their holdings. He encouraged Bonassa to spend money on her in one of the back rooms, and was more than happy to get Irv into a few of the underground games around town.

  So here he was, owner of a run-down amusement park, or—more correctly—part owner. Wouldn’t you know it, but an ex-cop named Gavin Kovaks had already owned a piece of the place. He’d been on the pad to Carmine “The Roman” Falcone back in the day. He’d been busted and did a jolt at Gotham State Penitentiary. When Grissom first met him on the carnival grounds, he’d taken Kovaks for some sort of broke down alkie caretaker. Well the alkie part had been right.

  “Yeah, crazy how these things work out, isn’t it?” Kovaks said. He smelled like liniment and lost dreams, sitting in his little shack at the back end of the amusement park. A couple of dog-eared skin mags sat on a wobbly table, peeking out from under a dingy dishtowel. There was a poster tacked to one of the walls—Ronald Reagan, but not in the Oval Office. It was a black-and-white of him in his acting days, smiling and squint-eyed on a horse, a cowboy hat atop his head. “But as you can see, Mr. Gris
som, right here in this copy of the deed, I got a five percent interest.”

  “Lemme guess, the original is tucked away someplace safe.”

  Goddamn Stan Bonassa didn’t tell me about this shit.

  “Oh yes, sir,” Kovaks said cheerily, his goofy fur-lined winter cap cocked on his head, ear flaps down. “Got to protect that which is precious, don’t you know? Prison taught me that.” He gave an innocent grin.

  “Yeah, smart,” Grissom drawled, but he knew how it was going to go. Once he found that original deed, Kovaks would be saying sayonara to his crappy little shack, permanently. He’d bury him out there near the marsh with those few others, including the newly arrived corpse delivered by Frankie Bones.

  He didn’t want people to think of this as the disposal graveyard, but a buck was a buck, and Palmares offered top dollar.

  “So how is it you own a piece?” Grissom said as casually as he could muster. Kovaks grinned again, and it wasn’t a pleasant look for him.

  “Back when I was in harness, I got around a lot before that prick Gordon tripped me up.” He leaned closer across the small table, increasing the smell. “Stan had a thing for the ladies. He didn’t always look like a gnome, like he does now, and back then he had green lining his pockets, yeah?”

  Grissom waited, resisting the urge to strangle the man.

  “He got to going ’round with this contortionist who worked for him. I seen her do her stuff, and believe me she could put herself in all kinds of positions.” The grin turned into a leer.

  Grissom remained stone-faced.

  Kovaks shrugged. “Anywho, as you might imagine, she caught the eye of more than one guy and this leather vest, chopper type shows up at the office here one time, telling Stan in no uncertain terms he had to keep his mitts off her. The guy slapped him around some to emphasize the point. Wouldn’t you know it but ol’ Big Tiny the strongman sees this, and as he’s the protective type, so he slaps the biker around some.”

  Now this was interesting.

  “Knocked him around too good, and motorcycle boy cracked his head open on the corner of a table.” He sat back, spreading his hands. “Good thing the boys had come to me a time or two before, like say when the knife thrower had nicked a dutiful taxpaying citizen, and they needed the trouble to go away.”