“Still, an unexpected move can catch even the most experienced person off-guard.” She sat back, taking in the board. It was reflected in her glasses.
“Lord knows that’s true,” he agreed, shaking his head.
Barbara smiled.
“He’ll catch him,” she said. “He always does.”
Gordon grunted. “It seems as if the Bat and the Joker are destined to forever play out their endless game of cat and mouse. He’s becoming more driven, if that’s possible, and the Joker—who knows what kind of endless loop plays in his twisted road map of a mind. It’s as if he hungers for both the chase and the capture.”
“Perhaps he has no sense of the passing of time,” she suggested, “just as he has no sense of morality.”
Gordon hunched a shoulder. “He’s his own brand of madness.”
She nodded and moved her knight. He considered his counter, then huffed and sat back, rubbing his temples. It had been difficult to focus, ever since the incident at the asylum.
“My heart’s not really in it tonight.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “We can always pick it up another day. Let’s move into the living room.”
He nodded and, scooping up the scrapbook and the newspaper, moved to his favorite easy chair. She busied herself in the kitchen. Setting the scrapbook on the glass-and-metal coffee table, he held the newspaper and picked up a pair of scissors.
“I hate this,” he said. “Whenever we jail him, I think ‘please God, keep him there.’ Then he escapes and we all sit round hoping he won’t do anything too awful this time.
“I hate it,” he said again.
“Dad, just once could you leave your work at the office and relax?” Barbara joined him, carrying a tray with a pair of steaming mugs. “I made you cocoa.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he replied, holding the scissors up to the edge of the newspaper. “I’ll drink it when I’ve pasted this latest clipping in.” This particular scrapbook was devoted to Batman’s eternal dance with the Joker. Others were more general, tracking the shenanigans of some of Gotham’s more colorful underworld figures, such as the Penguin and the Riddler.
“You know, I found that Catwoman scrapbook you said was missing,” Barbara noted, setting the tray on the coffee table. “It was behind the wardrobe. Some day you ought to let me work out a proper filing system, like we used at the library.”
“Hmmm…” he responded, applying glue to the back of the clipping and pressing it into the book.
“Look, you used too much paste,” she said, scrunching up her face. “It’s all squidging under the edges of the clipping. You’re going to get it on your pants…” She reached out, but it was too late.
“Barbara, you’re fussier than your mother wa—”
He stopped. “Was that the door?”
“Yeah, it’ll be Colleen from across the street. Tonight’s our yoga class.” She walked toward the front of the apartment, still carrying her cocoa. “C’mon, Dad… company! Put your scrapbooks away.” As he picked it up to do as she asked, he noticed the oldest clipping in the book.
“Heh, look at this one. First time they met. Now what year was that?”
“Well, I remember you describing the white face and the green hair to me when I was a kid,” she said over her shoulder. “Scared the hell out of me.”
“I thought you’d be interested.”
“Yeah, well, I had some interesting nightmares.”
He heard the squeak of the doorknob as she turned it.
* * *
Zach stood in the hallway on the top floor of a ritzy apartment building, stomach twisting and heart beating too fast.
The Joker was poised in front of an ornate door with two burly henchmen forming a wall of muscle behind him. He was dressed in a weird costume that made him look like a tourist on some sort of tropical vacation. Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, with a camera on a strap around his neck, but still wearing the usual purple gloves and wide-brim hat.
“You’ll see, kid,” the Joker had said. “It’ll be the best gag ever!”
Cradling his beloved Arpanet module in sweaty hands, Zach was both nervous and excited. Whatever the Joker had in mind, it was going to be epic. To hell with the board of regents and their funding. He didn’t need it, now. He was part of a cool, edgy crew. He’d show the Lisa MacIntoshes of the world. They’d be begging him to—
The Joker pulled out a gun.
“Whoa,” Zach said. “Is that real?”
The Joker turned toward him, manic grin blasting him like a klieg light, and the excitement inside him curdled into fear. He suddenly wished that awful gaze would focus somewhere else. Anywhere but on him.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t…” Zach stammered. “I mean, what are you…”
“Don’t be such a party pooper,” the Joker said, rolling his eyes dramatically as he turned and rapped on the door. “It’s gonna be a riot.”
The door opened wide, revealing a well-lit room and a red-haired woman in a yellow blouse, wearing glasses and holding a mug. This was the girl, the one the Joker had told him about, and Zach really wanted to hate her. He needed her to be this terrible bitch to make what they were doing okay, but in that moment, she just looked like an ordinary girl he might see at the campus library. One of her white sneakers was coming untied.
She didn’t look scared, she looked furious.
“Hey!” she said, the cup falling to the floor as she lunged for the white-faced intruder.
Then the Joker shot her.
The sound of the gun going off was so much louder than they made it on TV, or even the movies. Zach didn’t just hear it, he felt it in his whole body as if his skeleton was a tuning fork. It rippled through him and he flinched, nearly dropping the module. The bullet hit the girl in her midsection. She dropped her cup and crumpled, curling inward around her bleeding belly, her glasses flying off and stocking feet coming up off the floor.
She stiffened again, straightening and pitching backward to land on a low glass table that shattered beneath her weight. There was an older guy sitting there, and he looked vaguely familiar. For a split second he just stared down at her, holding a pair of scissors, then he reached out.
“Barb…?” he said.
The Joker stood behind him, smiling and calm.
“Please don’t worry,” he said. “It’s a psychological complaint, common among ex-librarians. You see, she thinks she’s a coffee table edition.” He walked over to a bar and picked up a bottle of something, pouring it into a shot glass. “Mind you, I can’t say much for the volume’s condition. I mean, there’s a hole in the jacket, and the spine appears to be damaged.”
What the hell…? Zach thought furiously, his brain going a mile a minute as he stared at the ruin the bullet had left behind. There was no way the Joker could tell how much damage he’d done. Hell, it’s a miracle she’s still breathing at all. He didn’t think that was likely to last.
The old man got to his feet, one hand still holding the scissors, and started moving toward the Joker from behind. His expression was a mix of shock and anger.
“You, you scum,” the guy said. “My daughter, I’ll—”
Before he could get more than a step or two, though, one of the Joker’s bruisers grabbed him and punched him in the gut, causing the old guy to double over with a loud gasp.
“Frankly, she won’t be walking off the shelves in that state of repair,” the Joker continued as if nothing was happening behind him. “In fact, the idea of her walking anywhere seems increasingly remote. But then, that’s always a problem with softbacks.” He chuckled a little at his own joke.
“God, these literary discussions are so dry,” the maniac continued, holding up the glass and staring at it. “When you’ve finished with the old boy, you know where to take him.” As he said it, the muscle-bound thug punched the old dude in the face, causing him to crumple.
“And please… do be careful. After all, he is topp
ing the bill.” As two of the thugs carried the gray-haired guy out, he leaned over the fallen girl, his leering grin wider than ever. “You know, it’s such a shame you’ll miss your father’s debut, Miss Gordon.”
Wait a minute… is that the police commissioner?
“Sadly, our venue wasn’t built with the disabled in mind. But don’t worry, I’ll capture the moment to remind him of you.” With that he glanced to where Zach was standing, just inside of the door. His blood ran cold.
I should run. I should call someone. I should…
He didn’t move a muscle.
“Wuh… wuh…” the girl gasped, her face contorted in pain and tears running down the sides of her head. “Why… are you… duh… doing this…?” It looked as if every word caused her intense pain.
“To prove a point,” the Joker said. In one hand he held up the liquor. “Here’s to crime.” With the other hand, he started to unbutton her yellow blouse.
“Set up the transmitter, Zachy boy,” the Joker said over his shoulder. “It’s showtime!”
Zach started backing toward the door.
“I… I…”
The Joker made an exaggerated face, like a man annoyed by his disobedient poodle. “Don’t even think it,” he said darkly.
Zach froze, acutely aware that he had to pee. If there had been any doubt that he had made the worst mistake of his life, it was obliterated in that moment.
“You’re one of us, now, Zach—no turning back.” Then the Joker brightened. “Cheer up! Look on the bright side. This’ll put you on the front page! On every television screen in the land! You’ll make Michael Jackson look like yesterday’s news.”
“I need…” Zach swallowed, his throat scratchy and bone dry. “I need a phone.”
The two henchmen carried the now unconscious gray-haired guy toward the door. One of them sighed audibly, shifting the unconscious man’s lower legs so as to hold those legs together under one massive arm with the casual thoughtlessness of a man adjusting his grip on his grocery bags to open his car door.
He picked up a telephone off a small, ornate side table and tossed it in Zach’s direction. It landed in a jangling heap at his feet, the receiver flying off to the full length of its spiral cord and then snapping back.
Zach concentrated on setting up his module on the rumpled, blood-splattered oriental rug. He tried not to think about the gun pointed at him, or the naked and bleeding girl, or what the Joker might be doing to her. He just went through each step with meticulous care, pretending he was back in the familiar, safe Computer Science lab at Gotham University.
Plugging a cord into a wall socket, he booted up the module, fitted the phone receiver into the two rubber-lined holes, and initiated the dial-up sequence. He switched on the camera and tapped the lens. Everything ran perfectly, just like it was supposed to.
“Are we on?” the Joker asked impatiently.
Zach couldn’t make his lips and tongue work properly, so he just nodded. He meant to keep staring down at his perfect little machine, obediently doing its job, recording and uploading everything. But then he made the mistake of looking up. Looking at the wounded girl.
All he could see was her head and shoulders. The rest of her was hidden behind the Joker’s hunched back. She was looking right at Zach. A tear rolled down her pale, blood-splattered cheek as her body rocked slightly. It reminded Zach of the way a gazelle’s body moved while being eaten alive by lions on one of those nature shows.
His hand flew to his mouth and he staggered away, vomit spilling between the fingers.
The Joker’s unhinged giggles echoed down the hallway.
Caustic shame burned inside Zach, along with the bile in his throat and tears in his eyes as he ran for the stairs.
What the hell have I done?
30
Barbara faded in and out of consciousness, isolated images and surreal impressions flashing in quick succession like shuffled cards.
A gunshot.
Spilled cocoa.
The Joker, his leering smile and those terrible eyes. White fingers in her mouth. A strange, glittering fish-eye camera lens. A skinny kid with glasses and a pale, horrified face. The intricate weave of the rug beneath her wet cheek.
Was that tears or blood on her face?
Did it matter?
“Why…” she asked, or thought she did. She couldn’t tell if she had spoken out loud or not. “Why are you doing this?”
“To prove a point,” a warped and distant voice replied as she started to gray-out again.
Terrible things happened to her, but she couldn’t feel anything. Just a weird, disconnected sense of fluctuating pressure, like the way you feel at the dentist. Knowing something that should hurt is happening, but numb.
Where was her father? Why couldn’t she remember what had happened to him? All she had was this impression of a flurry of violent movement and him calling out her name.
“Topping the bill…”
Then, nothing. The Joker’s men must have taken him. Must have killed Carstairs and Badoya parked in their patrol car downstairs, part of her father’s around-the-clock detail. If her dad was hurt, or worse, she could never forgive herself for not being able to protect him. After all, what was the point of being a superhero if you couldn’t protect the ones you love?
She had to do something. Anything. She had to focus, think, fight. She wasn’t anybody’s point to prove. She was fucking Batgirl. Her body was broken and her mind jagged and fractured by trauma, but she was still alive, and she wasn’t going down without a fight.
The Joker was fiddling with some sort of weird machine, laughing to himself like a deranged hyena as he pointed a bulbous lens. Was he taking photos? Filming her? Why?
There was nothing she could use as a weapon, and she didn’t think she had the strength to swat a fly, even if there was. She knew she must be bleeding out. Her hands were ice cold and shaking and seemed like they belonged to someone else, but she still had on the watch.
Bruce gave it to her, and she remembered being mildly annoyed when he told her about the tracker inside it. She didn’t need him stalking her, even if he was Batman. He’d reassured her that it only worked when it was activated, and so she had reluctantly accepted the thing. Just in case she ever found herself in deeper trouble than she could handle, he had said.
She had scoffed at the idea that such a situation would ever occur, but told herself she only wore it so she wouldn’t seem ungrateful. The truth was that she really wore it because she thought it looked pretty cool with its matte black finish and sleek, numberless face.
Her hands were slicked with sweat and blood, but she got the watch off.
The Joker was wrapping up what he was doing, pulling a floppy disk out of the weird little machine and tucking it into his pocket. She was running out of time. It was too late for her, but the Joker’s men had her father.
Maybe it wasn’t too late for him.
It took every ounce of strength she had left, but she reached out to the Joker, weakly clutching at his shirt front and playing the desperate, pathetic victim begging for her life.
“Please…” she whispered through her teeth, pulling him close and willing herself not to pass out. “Please.”
“You know I’d love to stick around for more fun, toots,” he said, “but a villain’s work is never done.” She wasn’t listening. She was laser-focused on slipping the watch into the pocket of his Bermuda shorts. She just had to push the button.
Abruptly he pulled away from her.
The watch dropped into his pocket, unactivated.
She had failed. Through the despair and anger she could feel what remained of her consciousness slipping away. Her last chance to do something was gone, and she was going to be left alone here to die while god knows what was happening to her father. An involuntary shriek of frustration and fury welled up in her throat, but she clenched her teeth against it.
Barbara wouldn’t give that son of a bitch the satisfaction.
His footsteps receded down the hall as she focused her woozy gaze on the broken handle of her cup lying on the rug a few inches from her nose. It was a sharp, jagged break, raw white porcelain jarringly revealed beneath the rustic brown glaze.
More footsteps.
I tried, Daddy, she thought as she fell away from herself and into the depths of black unconsciousness.
* * *
Barbara?
A powerful electric shock blasted Jim Gordon back into terrified consciousness. The pain of it was breathtaking as every muscle in his body went into wrenching spasms.
He bit deeply into his tongue without realizing it, his mouth and throat filling with blood until he felt as if he was drowning. When the agony receded enough for him to regain his senses, he became aware of a rough cloth hood over his head, claustrophobic and foul-smelling with stiff stains around the nose and mouth. Someone was touching him all over.
There were lots of hands, slapping, pinching, and inspecting him like he was livestock of questionable value, but there was something very wrong with those hands. Were they… children’s hands? They seemed way too small to be adult hands but also felt bony and oddly proportioned with abnormally long, skittering fingers and sharp nails.
“Wake up,” a chorus of raspy, lisping voices were saying, speaking in slightly imperfect unison. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”
Again, the electricity rampaged through his body, whiting out his vision and evoking an involuntary howl.
“He’s up,” one of the voices said. “See?”
“Are you up?” another asked, patting his face through the scratchy cloth.
“Barbara?” he said. His tongue felt treacherous and too thick, and there was a strange, bitter taste underneath the blood in his mouth. Had he been drugged? “Where is she? Barbara?”
“Barbara!” the first voice repeated.
“Where is she?” said the second.
“Barbara!” They all started chanting together. “Barbara! Barbara!”
It was maddening, but he had to pull himself together. His head was throbbing as he made himself focus on small details, to try and figure out where the hell he was. Like the feel of cheap, splintery wood against his back and legs. He was sitting, slouching was more like it, wedged into a corner, and there were a few scattered fragments of what felt like prickly straw beneath him. Was he in some kind of cage or animal enclosure? Like a zoo maybe? There was a slight breeze on his skin, which seemed to imply that he was near an open window or door.
DC Comics novels--Batman Page 18